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Electronics As Plastics
WillSeattle writes: "Well, what goes around comes around. According to a New York Times article (free registration required), 21st century electronics may be based on plastic and other carbon-based molecules, or organic chemicals.
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I also heard about a light-crystal RAM solution that was pretty impressive. It used multiple layers to push up to a terrabyte into a piece of crystal. Very nice.
- I don't care if they globalize against free speech. All my best free thoughts are done in my head.
A Nobel Prize is being awarded to a Physicist for his work (in the 70's) in plastic electronics. Evidently, most of his work is just now coming into use and shows great potential for future applications.
"I believe that a scientist looking at nonscientific problems is just as dumb as the next guy." -Richard Feynman
Plus I don't want some nasty lab technician dumbing a bacterophage into my computer and making me buy new hardware.
Respond to s
Gives a whole new meaning to viruses, eh? Not only will your data be screwed, but your whole computer is gonna die!
Mike
"I would kill everyone in this room for a drop of sweet beer."
Tech Support: Hello. Tech support. How can I help?
Customer: I think my computer's dead.
Tech Support: Is it plugged into the wall?
Customer: No, I mean dead. I left for a week without feeding it. I can smell the decaying flesh.
Tech Support: Sorry, our warranty doesn't cover neglect.
This is mentioned every time a NYT article comes up, but there *IS* a no-registration-required site. Instead of www.nytimes... use partners.nytimes...
HERE'S THE ARTICLE without registration crap.
High-speed Road Trip (18.000KPH)
Eventually we will run out of petroleum and so the future of these circut designs could be in doubt. Also do we really want fluctuating oil prices effecting computer prices as well (at least directly)?
Respond to s
If slashdot knows of it's existence why force people to see the registration page?
Respond to s
some bits of information: polyacetylene which is basically the material the nobel prize was won for has a conductivity of about 10^4... while gold/sliver copper is only 100 times that... pretty good the polyparaphenylenes and doped polyparapheynylenes (sulfide/vinylene) have a reflective appearance which means their band gap is in the infra red which means they absorb the particular electro magnetic radiation which radar uses - this was used as a coating for the B2
to email me: take my
"Well, what goes around comes around. According to a New York Times article (free registration required), 21st century electronics may be based on plastic and other carbon-based molecules, or Organic Chemicals."
Scientists have been moving in this direction for a long time. This is not really news. The problem with creating things out of organics, is that organic things either decay or die or whatever. Granted, plastic, metal, glass and ceramic wear down in some fashion or another, but can be much more durable than organic material (for machinery). How do they intend to solve this problem? I don't see ordering replacement parts every few months, unless they're going to sell these parts like disposable contacts, where we get a year's supply at a time.
They are bigger and slower than Si- or Ge-based semiconductors. Indeed, their most appealing attribute-flexibility-is totally irrelevant to the giants of silicon. At present, organic semiconductors have no market (judging by sales... the potential is huge), but will very likely establish a new market, and flourish within it.
For all the reasons so eloquently explained in "Dilemna", the established semiconductor companies will have difficulty entering such a small, new market. This leaves the field open for new entrants to dominate the market for organic semiconductors. If they can establish a steep improvement trajectory, then they might be able to move upmarket in only a few years.
This should be interesting to watch. The real test of a descriptive model, such as "Dilemna", comes when you use it predictively. Otherwise, you can only explain situations post hoc.
"Genius may have its limitations, but stupidity is not thus handicapped." --Elbert Hubbard (1856-1915)
Plastic eh.....
I wonder how long before Apple comes out with the iResistor and the iC Circuit, the chips you can see through.
Ok imagine a future windows setup mixed with these. Mission critical will mean a week of uptime at a stretch if you are lucky. This will only increase instability and decrease quality control and assurance. Why not make things last and make many of them?
Respond to s
Well I wouldn't be suprised if organic pieces of computers thrive, which I am sure they will, but not to soon... maybe when I am old and crippled I will see a gross mess that looks like a brain sitting on a processor... but thats not true... It wouldn't be a mess casue that is organic in the wrong sense... It is just bacteria, or some little particle of life... But it still has possibliities... remember in biology classes... 1 cell organisms have a lot of stuff packed into them. And single cells can harnessed.
"I am free of All Prejustice. I Hate Everyone."
WOOOOOOOO
You get beyond a certain limit and the cell cannot conduct proper membrane transport operations and will die.
Respond to s
Here is a really good article on discovery.com that I posted on my site the other day. neurocomputers are cool. I'm quite excited to see where it all goes. The next many years are going to be a exciting ride.... My site is here. Its just all the cool links and stuff that I find everyday.
Check out my site at www.jonsnews.com
Also I thought it was the case that some plastics are impossible to recycle making the case even worse than that. I think some of the polyeurathane varieties have that problem right?
Respond to s
The term "organic" in chemistry refers to any mollecule that has a carbon atom in it, or any with a carbon structure. This is somewhat counter intutive to what most people think when they say "organic" and think alive.
Respond to s
Someone should patent that idea. Nuf Said.
So do I. You ain't gettin my personal info, you dirty site! Opress the man.. read the article with no registration!
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CitizenC
Please note that the mouse currently attached to your computer is organic, as is your keyboard, and the outer covering of the case.
So is a Formica counter top, your wood floor, the alcohol you've been ingesting way too much of and the oil in the sump of your car.
As a professor of mine used to say, "gallium arsenide has been The Technology of The Future for the last 30 years ...". And this guy knew what he was talking about : he gave the courses on GaAs process ...
The point is that, each time a new technology has threatened silicon's hegemony with a slight increase of performance, convenience, etc, it has been beaten flat dead in a matter of months. Each time a GaAs buff announced a new milestone for transistor speed, some guy in Japan came 3 month later with a Si transistor 30% faster.
It's just that the investement and know-how in silicon process is so huge, so enormous. There's a huge incentive and a huge abitlity to push this process farther each time a contender shows up. Even more, not only silicon wins all the time, but even analog functions that used to require special process increasingly move towards standard digital process. Even the hotest new new thing in town, silicon-germanium, kowtows to this truth. Its most important asset is that it is 100% compatible with silicon process.
So well, yeah, may be, one of those days.
News of the death of silicon have always been greatly exagerated...
If this organic chemistry/plastic tech was taken to the limit, what you might get is a single, nearly featureless plastic shape, molded to your personal taste. There might be a connection for a battery, some keys and ports, but otherwise the thing is probably featureless.
All the plastics in the device look alike (maybe different colors), but each servs different purposes. One plastic could produce a laser/light for the screen, one plastic provides the computing capability. A magnetic plastic provides memory. They even have plastics that act as solar panels, so maybe it wouldn't need to have batteries replaced so often.
Now try to reverse engineer this thing.
Go ahead. Find the wires. Can't see anything, because everything is the same kind of semi-opaque color?
You probably can't even open it up because the device was extruded and baked, not etched on circuit boards. And it's definitely not meant to be modified or upgraded, but just thrown away, because once these things can be mass produced they are going to be really damn cheap.
This is a computer company's dream come true: disposable computers. It is also a boon to the consumer's pocketbook. Still, the hardware nerds will have to stay on their toes to keep the technology open-source.
Doesn't this title remind you of the classic film, and the time that inspired it, "The Graduate"? "Plastics, kid, that's where all the money is; I'm telling you!"
In a similar way, electronics are the plastics of today. They've been the holy grail of investors for the past decade as well as the dream job of many of today's youth. Perhaps a similar conclusion will be drawn about electronics, thirty years from now. Today if an 18 year old told their parents they weren't going to college but would instead start off at $20 an hour at a start up many, but not all, parents would be happy. And yet in 30 years, when a large portion of the American economy will probably be dedicated to creating 'virtual' products (Be it through actual coding or through content generation) will it be the same 'glamour job' that it is today? One of my History Profs continually reminds us that at the beginning of the century Auto-mechanics were looked upon as 'glamour jobs.' Perhaps a similar effect will occur with computers.
Sorry if this drifted off topic...I just liked the graduate reference and kept going!
Checkout taccom my worl war II simulator
I've long thought that the eventual method of production of ultra-miniaturized electronics (if they still qualify for that name) will be to essentially have them grow themselves. I have a great deal of respect for our engineer's ability to get ever-smaller semiconductor feature sizes out of a given frequency of light, but the present system of using ever-decreasing wavelengths will hit the wall before it reaches the molecular level, IMO. Even though we can probably get to these sizes using direct-write electron beams, I don't see this as being viable for mass-production, since it would take a looong time to expose an entire wafer. I think some sort of self-producing system is where we'll end up, and it's encouraging to see these advances being made in organic substances.
Proteins can build a living being, why not a processor?
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end communication
"organic" chemicals are not chemicals made by mother nature & sold in your health food store. they're not bacteria or any other biological system, including proteins. organic chemicals are exactly what the topic said : carbon based molecules. anything made of solely carbon, nitrogen, oxygen & hydrogen is generally considered organic. this would be as opposed to inorganic chemicals which contain metals, non-metals (like silicon) or either of the lanthanides or actinides.
when this article refers to organic chemicals it means stuff made in a lab by chemists & includes, as was mentioned previously, polymers, plastics etc.
the reason these systems are so interesting is their versatility. bell labs, uh sorry, lucent scientists recently showed some really neat behaviour in the anthracene/tetracene family (as in mothballs) including lasing (albeit at low temperatures, but you've got to cool most lasers anyways) & superconductivity. they've managed to build field-effect transistors out of single crystals of pentacene. all very cool stuff & some of it came out recently in either PRL or nature, ok now i can tell you it's science. if you do an authour search for batlogg you'll get a chronological list of what they've been up to. i will attempt to link the search results here (fingers crossed). you should be able to read the abstracts at least.
hope this clears up why organic chemicals have nothing to do with the organic world & why the NY times is so excited about organics.
chris
You probably can't even open it up because the device was extruded and baked, not etched on circuit boards. And it's definitely not meant to be modified or upgraded, but just thrown away, because once these things can be mass produced they are going to be really damn cheap.
I think most will have interfaces, and probably will have modules to allow certain things to be upgraded by replacing or adding new modules.
This is a computer company's dream come true: disposable computers. It is also a boon to the consumer's pocketbook. Still, the hardware nerds will have to stay on their toes to keep the technology open-source.
These are the scary parts - if it's disposable will it biodegrade (maybe pulltabs with biodecompositive agents hidden inside) or choke our dumps forever? And if it's a single unit, will this mean monopolies will keep the bio code out of the open source movement's hands?
If patents continue to expand without checks, this could be the case.
Will in Seattle
Got me. It was submitted by 1pm P.S.T. and didn't show up within four hours of recording that it was accepted. They must have some kind of publication aging queue for stories.
[valid question - I submitted it and so know the answer to the time issue - Will]
Will in Seattle
Can I have LED paint? It would be nifty to dip a brush in a bucket of goo, paint a stroke, apply a voltage across it, and have the paint emit light a la an LED. I have no idea if this is possible (I think I get a C in electronics, generally), but from all that talk of using inkjets to paint on circuits, why not? The only problem I can envisage is polarity, but then I'm not even sure whether these things are fussy about that. Sounds like it could be a lot of fun.
proof, n. A demonstration that a conclusion is implied by certain premises and axioms.
What an urban legend. Bush was shooting crack and barely getting a straight C all through Yale. His father had to get him out of expulsion a couple of times.
Most plastics are derived from components in petrol. Wonder if these advances will drive up the value or cost of gas. Gallon of gas or future advanced thing-a-ma-jig...hmmm...
I read the title "Electronics as Plastics" and thought of something completely different.
Now, instead of "Son... Here's a point of advice. If you want to be successful, get into plastics!" we have, "If you want to be successful, learn computers."
Apparently these guys sell some tape that does that. The RX7 spy car guy detailed his car with the stuff. Looks freaky cool.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
It's been brought up somewhat before, but it needs to be stressed more, the impact our current "habbits" have on the enviroment and our resources will totally deplete our planet's resources, sure, it's gonna take quite some time, and yes, we'll probably find solutions to most of the energy problems and such, but actively searching for less wastefull methods of making things, and making things less wastefull themselves should be a top priority.
I'm not a big eco-freak, I realise that certain things are just not financially sound, but organic chips is something that has a future.
People live in the present too much, and not enough in the future, resources WILL deplete, and it is shortsighted to insist on using our planets precious resources when there are viable alternatives.
I personally hope that organic chips start replacing silicon chips in the near future, however, this will be one of the largest revolutions in the computer world so it will take some time, in that light, what better time to start that now?
---- Stage 5 of drinking : Politics begin to appeal
Am I the only one who saw the title of this article and instantly thought of the substance imipolex, from Rudy Rucker's books "Software"/"Wetware"/"Freeware"? (all excellent reads by the way). How long will it be until I can have a Happy Cloak?
Or will we at least see kids talking about trading the latest Tupperwarez?
Damn...so we will be able to just bring up our favorite image viewer and print off reams of cpus? That rocks!
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
If the guys down at N Y T got a
subscription to Scientific Deutchelaender,
they would be buried navel deep in articles
& ads on organic conduction for everthing
from grounding layers for cathode ray tubes
to lightweight substrates for batteries [which
is probably one of the few legit apps for this stuff; unless of course they bring in a
room temp superconductor.]
]X[
VA doctors have found neither
chemical or biological
justification for the Desert Storm
Syndrome. Perhaps our officers
are punishing their men for what
they did under orders. Symptoms
created with a MICROWAVE LASE
Actually, No Oil = No CHEAP Plastics.
You (the chemist) can still make 'em, they'll just cost more. BTW, for most of the last century, the official prediction has always been "we only have 25 (or so) years of oil reserves". But guess what happened? We kept finding more. Progress occurs in more fields than just electronics.
I don't like *SOLID* sccreens
I believe in projection screens.
Projectors for instance could pronably
be polarized for *flating* or 3D effects.
Plastic displays might be good to stop certain types of vandalism but for general
useage a *dureable projector* would be alot more
fun.
An optical fiber/piezoelectric crystal
might be caused to scan a section of wall
w/ a modulated beam to give you a 38" screen
at a fraction of the weight of carrying
the weight of the screen with you.
The original omechanical scanners didn't work well because of poor timing bearings.
A miniaturized mech scanner the size of a
discman could probably give you a large screen in brilliant color
^ ^ ^ ^ ^
Got migranes,face pains
toothaches, sinus
flu,nausea or other
conditions pertaining
to the head & throat
...make an aluminum
foil hood, move around,
so as not to be reaquired
as a target; & don't
look at a tv tube
the morphological
similarities between a
MICROWAVE LASER &
TV tubes
is beyond the scope
of this message
what?! i was talking to the guy dissing on hemos. *sigh* oh well.
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