Tinkerer-Scale Control Circuitry
July 6, 2022

Communities should be able to create sophisticated control circuitry locally, revise it immediately, and keep building without waiting for a distant chip or PCB supply chain. Brian Greenforest’s goal brings VLSI-scale capability into the hands of tinkerers.

The resulting platform would support sensing, switching, gain, restoration, timing, and actuation without depending entirely on CPUs, GPUs, microcontrollers, or even conventional FPGAs.

Shorten the Physical Iteration Loop

Today a complex control design often leaves the workbench for board layout, fabrication, packaging, shipping, and assembly. Each turn stretches the gap between an idea and the next physical measurement.

A locally buildable active-circuit medium can collapse that delay. Builders could alter structure, test behavior, and learn from the machine while the question still feels immediate.

Start a Movement Around Local Capability

Fast iteration creates more than convenience. It gives schools, repair communities, laboratories, and independent inventors direct control over the circuitry that shapes their tools.

Materials researchers, makers, educators, and circuit designers can help define the process. Build the element, the interconnect, or the teaching path that lets a local community create its own machines.

Build the Fabrication Path Behind Tinkerer-Scale Control Circuitry

The Missing Maker Fab carries this work into the tools and processes required to fabricate fast active devices locally.

Searching for a Tinkerer Replacement for Silicon · The Missing Maker Fab

Originally posted on LinkedIn

Brian Greenforest · (2022-07-06 19:50:22 UTC)

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My "Why" is to enable tinkerers with continuous iteration with ultra short turnaround times. My "Why" is to empower every local community with ability to create control circuitry in any sophisticated way. Without depending on CPUs, GPUs, microprocessors, even FPGAs. I want give power to people. I want us to not even wait for PCBs or chips to arrive. Something VLSI but without classical fab model. Something scalable. Something massive. Do you want to start a movement?

Comments added by Brian Greenforest on LinkedIn

This comment was also preserved verbatim from Brian Greenforest’s LinkedIn data export or the public post page.

I don't have a solution yet. Not without CMOS silicon, shortage of which the CEO of Intel stretched into 2024.

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