3-D Flexible Computer Chips

Roland Piquepaille writes "Engineers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have isolated a single-crystal film of semiconductor from the substrate on which it is built. Then they transferred this very thin film — 200 nanometers thick — on plastic. Both sides of the film can host active components and several layers can be stacked, opening the way to very powerful 3-D flexible computer chips. Besides computer chips, this technique could be used for solar cells, smart cards, RFID tags or active-matrix flat panel displays."

Comments

The Future is now

[RMB2]

... bringing us that much closer to the roll-up computer screens of Tek War.

Great show, man. Shatner was amazing

Excellent application for cpu construction.

[plasmacutter]

Heat dissipation is a major issue in cpus.. imagine if you could integrate your cpu within the heatsink's mesh at a monocrystaline level.

It would be a revolution in cooling efficiency.

Could be used...

[QuantumG]

but won't. Call me when the technology is even remotely ready for commericalization.

Re:Could be used...

[rolfwind]

People probably once had the same attitude toward the transistor when it first came out....

And thus...

[Null Nihils]

Moore's law will be able to keep marching on.

Hopefully these tricks, and others, will be commercially available by the time it becomes impractical to cram any more cores on a single chip.

Imagine

[cryptoluddite]

They say this can be used for solar cells too. Imagine what 300 billion dollars investment could have done to make this a reality. We're like the 3rd generation of rich kid, the one that pisses away the fortune on gambling and yahts instead of doing something productive with it.

Oh?

[SmallFurryCreature]

Well my phone does get warm if I use all its features and my iPod sure warms up when it plays video and my PSP and DS both can get a bit warm if played in their case. (Why yes I am a gadget whore)

Presumably the CPU in larger devices like my washing machine is properly placed and can use the entire body of the machine to cool it, but in general electric circuits of any kind will produce heat under load.

Saying it just PC cpu's is idiotic. All cpu's will get warm, just because some you use are small enough and cooled well enough that you don't notice it doesn't mean they won't overheat if you remove the cooling.

Sympathy [ok, off topic, sorry]

[Flying pig]

So you had rather that the family cycle didn't exist, and the entire world was by now owned by one man? At least the third generation rich kid provides a living for Indian tribes and interesting employment for other people.

Being serious, your argument is flawed. This might not in fact be a good way to make better solar cells. You can invest as much as you like in technology, but if you try to push too far in one direction too fast you will fail to get synergies. Putting a man on the moon has actually achieved very little for space flight overall. Heavy expenditure on military programs leads to waste and inefficiency, and ends up with paradoxes like commercial semiconductor designs being more reliable than extensively tested military ones.

It actually takes a long time to train PhDs who can build on the work of the previous generation, and the number of people with the capability of doing leading edge work is limited. Before you can spend $300 billion on R&D you have to get a big enough educated population, and that means rapid social development under less than ideal conditions. Don't misunderstand me, I believe we need large investments to mitigate global warming - but the answer may not be solar power, or hydrogen, and it would be foolish to bet the planet on any one technology.