The general trend in 3D printing is for faster and larger machines that provide more build volume with an increase in output. But sometimes it’s just as cool to see things printed on a microscale. The benefits of microscopic 3D print can be rather macro. Fabric8Labs revealed at Hot Chips that it has developed a cool new way to 3D print copper into super small structures that can be used for directly cooling processors, which is a huge practical impact to come out of such tiny technology.
This process is accomplished using a method similar to resin printing but instead of relying on UV light, it integrates OLED display tech. This process is claimed to enable extreme precision, allowing for what Fabric8Labs describes as “pixel-perfect accuracy”. With this technology, they’ve demonstrated a few 3D printable surfaces that can be applied to chips for cooling.
The way resin printing usually works, beams of light are targeted into a vat of resin, causing it to harden layer by layer. In this case, Fabric8Labs takes advantage of electrical charges instead of beams of light to deposit copper. This type of 3D printing is known as electromechanical additive manufacturing (or ECAM for short).
You may like
-
MIT team creates chip-based 3D printer the size of a coin, cures resin using only light -
![]()
3D printed structures 10 times thinner than a human hair -
MIT researchers crack 3D printing with glass
At the moment, it is able to 3D print custom cooling plates with a variety of intricate designs that the company claims are better optimized for cooling compared to standard straight channels. These designs range from custom configurations created by team members to those optimized using AI.