February 26, 2011 at 01:04The first plastic processor
A group of researchers from the Belgian Imec Center at the ISSCC conference on February 20, 2011 presented the world's first plastic (or organic) microprocessor, which is capable of performing about six instructions per second.
An eight-bit chip from 4000 transistors in characteristics resembles silicon microcircuits of the 70s, but the difference is that it is made on a plastic substrate (polyethylene naphthalate), on which a layer of gold, an organic dielectric, a second layer of gold and an organic pentacene semiconductor are applied sequentially . It turns out a film with a thickness of 25 microns, which can be glued to any surface.
Perhaps it will find application in cheap flexible displays and in sensors that will be built into clothes, building materials, food, medicines.
Organic microprocessors have long been on the agenda of researchers, but they could not overcome the main problem - the unpredictable behavior of such transistors, caused by the lack of a solid single-crystal structure. Belgian scientists have solved this problem by introducing an additional gate on each transistor to control its characteristics.
The performance of the chip was checked on a program of 16 lines.
According to the developers, such processors can be about ten times cheaper than silicon counterparts, unless of course large-scale commercial production is established. True, organic processors can never accommodate hundreds of millions of transistors, like silicon chips.
via IEEE Spectrum
An eight-bit chip from 4000 transistors in characteristics resembles silicon microcircuits of the 70s, but the difference is that it is made on a plastic substrate (polyethylene naphthalate), on which a layer of gold, an organic dielectric, a second layer of gold and an organic pentacene semiconductor are applied sequentially . It turns out a film with a thickness of 25 microns, which can be glued to any surface.
Perhaps it will find application in cheap flexible displays and in sensors that will be built into clothes, building materials, food, medicines.
Organic microprocessors have long been on the agenda of researchers, but they could not overcome the main problem - the unpredictable behavior of such transistors, caused by the lack of a solid single-crystal structure. Belgian scientists have solved this problem by introducing an additional gate on each transistor to control its characteristics.
The performance of the chip was checked on a program of 16 lines.
According to the developers, such processors can be about ten times cheaper than silicon counterparts, unless of course large-scale commercial production is established. True, organic processors can never accommodate hundreds of millions of transistors, like silicon chips.
via IEEE Spectrum