Exact local decisions.
Owner-made digital ASICs carry exact state and policy. Photonic layers provide characterized transforms, interconnect and immutable memory under that control.
Owner-made personal hardware
Your phone.
Your authority.
A phone whose sensitive decisions belong to hardware you can make and inspect. Local digital logic, optical layers and an owner-made display form one deliberate boundary.
Research architecture · fabrication and integration unproven
Design visualization / proportions indicative
Functional laminate concept · optical and display yield remain open
70 × 150mmPocket footprint target, 10–15 mm thick
<3WSustained power target; 10 W burst
4generationsCoupon → sheet → slab → pocket
Ownership, all the way down
Make the boundary
you depend on.
The owner-made authority plane holds keys, applications and final I/O decisions. Purchased components add capacity while the local plane decides what they receive.
A display you can inspect.
The main surface is a locally made electrowetting display. A separate electrophoretic strip provides persistent status and recovery information.
An intentional connection.
DarkRadio carries an encrypted typed protocol to your server. Hardware-labelled root, confidential, released and public states define what can cross a boundary.
A process before a product
Write. Grow.
Inspect. Repeat.
A reduced 405 nm DLP writer defines patterns. Nanopipette meniscus electrodeposition adds material locally. Alignment, metrology and defect maps connect the steps.
Pattern
Projected light and selective surface preparation define the next local feature.
405 nm DLPDeposit
A confined meniscus grows the conductor or device structure where it is needed.
1–5 μm initial wet-writer targetQualify
Inspect the layer, measure devices and qualify the entire authority path before it handles secrets.
Yield remains unprovenThe first useful experimental writer may use packaged silicon. The target phone reserves secret-bearing authority for qualified owner-made hardware. Published nanoscale research results are not a demonstrated DIY process capability.
Components & cost transparency
Build the capability.
Then price the phone.
Open a component to see its scope. Estimates, historical references and unpriced work are shown as they appear in the design record.
Owner-made authority hardwareUnpricedUnpriced
Qualified local digital state, applications, crypto, keys, memory controls and final I/O authority.
Design source: README.mdDisplay and optical laminateUnpricedUnpriced
Electrowetting display, touch, optical compute/interconnect and immutable optical storage.
Design source: README.mdWriter and process equipmentUnpricedUnpriced
Reduced 405 nm DLP, meniscus electrodeposition, alignment, chemistry, metrology and environmental controls.
Design source: 2026-08-26-low-capital-maskless-microfabrication.mdRadio, power and worker capacityUnpricedUnpriced
Purchased components are bounded by the owner-made authority plane; integration and verification remain open.
Design source: README.mdFrom architecture to object
The path ahead.
This page shows the current design direction. These are the development steps ahead, with the open engineering work kept visible.
- Coupon · 25–50 mmCharacterize gates, memory, pixels and local process.
- Sheet · about 100 mmDemonstrate a complete authority path.
- Slab · 150 × 200 mmIntegrate a battery-operated communicator.
- Pocket · 70 × 150 mmResolve display yield, packaging and power targets.
The useful details
A closer look.
Is Glassphone already a secure working phone?
No. It is a research architecture with unresolved fabrication, yield, performance and integration. Security depends on qualifying the owner-made authority path and its physical implementation.
What may purchased chips do?
They may supply constrained power, RF or bulk computation. A worker receives bounded copied jobs; it does not own keys, final display composition, recording controls or packet authority.
Where does the internet connection go?
DarkRadio is the radio layer. An owner-controlled server handles external internet services through an encrypted typed protocol. The target phone has no general browser runtime.
Is optical computing responsible for everything?
No. Exact local digital ASICs own state and authority. Characterized photonic layers provide bounded computation, interconnect and immutable memory under that control.
What is the display resolution?
Early sealed electrowetting cells budget 0.3–1 mm pitch, about 25–85 ppi. The phone target is about 0.1 mm pitch, approximately 250 ppi; full-panel density and yield are unproven.
Designed in the open
Understand every layer.
Explore the architecture, the materials and the choices still ahead. The design preview is grounded in the current project record.
Source review: October 24, 2026. Visualizations explain the proposed architecture; they are not manufacturing drawings or photographs of built hardware.