I haven't had any experience with them, but as I understand it, the
process is really straightforward:

You need:
* Clean room ( or work box - I can see a plexiglass unit taking up the
space of a table)
* A mechanical or electromechanical reducer - this takes macro-scale
movements and translates them into micro-scale movements
* A tiny application tip for conductive epoxy
* A UV LED or laser for curing aformentioned epoxy  (or an ultrasonic
wirebonding system)
* A wire feeding/cutting tip
* A magnification/visualization system.  Stereo would be good, but you
could probably get by with a top camera and a side camera.

I suspect a homebrew system would be the easy part.  The hard part is
probably buying the die in small quantities.  They are likely shipped
en-masse directly from the semiconductor factory, and their systems are
likely not set up for delivering small loads - expect that the only
benefit you get from doing this yourself is, perhaps, a smaller board
and fewer working pieces.  You probably won't get the savings due to the
low volume.

You may be able to find some old units for a few grand, or you could
even look at used genetic equipment (the kind used to insert/extract DNA
into/from cells).  Genetics advances so quickly that equipment probably
becomes obsolete more quickly than semiconductor equipment.

It would be neat and not terribly difficult, but the applications where
it's worthwhile are limited.

-Adam

Matthew Brush wrote:

>Hello all
>
>Has anyone had any experience using integrated circuits "without" a package?  I notice a lot of consumer devices have what must be a processor buried under glob of something-or-other (ex. Calculator).  I also remember seeing these teeny tiny robots by some organization made with what appeared to be no traditional integrated circuits (link below).  On top of this, I remember seeing some chips available in the "wafer" or "die" package, something about cut and uncut.  So are these all the same thing?  I'm assuming it's exactly what's inside a normal IC except without being molded into plastic or ceramic or whatever.
>
>Has anybody had any experience with this type of "package"?  Is it possible (with patience) to hand solder (or otherwise) these chips at home?   How do you interface to these chips as they don't appear to have pins.  What other types of devices might use this "technology".
>
>I'm interested to hear more about these things.  Thanks for anyones time.  Peace
>
>Small Robots Link
>http://www.sandia.gov/media/NewsRel/NR2001/minirobot.htm)
>
>MJ Brush
>
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