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The World's First Flexible Organic Microprocessor
An anonymous reader writes "European researchers at Imec recently announced the development of the world's first flexible organic microprocessor at the International Solid-State Circuits Conference in San Francisco CA. 'The 4000-transistor, 8-bit logic circuit has the processing power of only a 1970s-era silicon model, but it has a key advantage—it can bend. The device’s designers say the chip could lead the way to cheaper flexible displays and sensors. Wrapped around pipes, for example, sheets of sensors with these processors could record average water pressure, and wrapped around food and pharmaceuticals, they might indicate that your tuna is rancid or that you forgot to take your pills.'"
..they might indicate that your tuna is rancid...
My god, man, where are you getting your tuna from?
I haven't seen the device, but this is not an all-organic device. From TFA, at least part of the electrodes are made of gold. Moreover, they use pentacene as a semiconductor, which is probably deposited with CVD. The IEEE article is tagged with "printed electronics" and I seriously doubt they managed to make this using the soluble form of pentacene (i.e. TIPS-pentacene). Still, this is not to poop on the achevement. It's a nifty feat and congrats to the team that managed to make this.
Res publica non dominetur
...will it blend?
Microprocessors have become small enough that flexibility isn't necessary for the applications cited in the summary. I can't really think of any situations where a flexible microprocessor would be more appropriate than a suitably small one...
... or that you forgot to take your pills.
I did forget, thanks!
Be seeing you...
I like my semiconductors happy, free-run, pesticide free, and grown on certified hobby farms. I'm glad the official organic label has finally been applied.
and no, I didn't RTFA
Karma: Excellent. 15 moderator points expire sometime.
'The 4000-transistor, 8-bit logic circuit has the processing power of only a 1970s-era silicon model, but it has a key advantage—it can bend.
Did anyone else read "it can blend"?
Not to knock the tech but how was microchip rigidity stopping you from putting these sensors in the lids/walls of these containers (tuna can, pill bottle, pipes) before? It's not like any of them bend much in their usage...
I've always wanted a can of tuna that can run CP/M
The world's 1st flexible organic microprocessor was probably some type of worm, circa 500 million years ago.
A 500 million year old worm called, he said "my organic microprocessor was flexible enough to work out that they meant 'man made'".
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
I can hardly wait for the latest batch of snobbery organic food crowd. "My computer runs using purely organic parts."
What about geek snobbery? "My organic processor won't evolve into Skynet like your cold logic-bound emotionless processor will."
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
...it has a key advantageâ"it can bend.
Meh. Let me know when it can blend.
No sig for you!!
Why not just make the pipes cubic instead of round :P
So...instead of being called hardware, these would be...software? I'm so confused!
A bicycle chain is made of rigid links, yet appears flexible. Objects flexible on a large scale don't have to be made up of small-scale components which are themselves flexible.
A flexible film can contain tiny inflexible chips.
Suppose a thin film, like food wrap, is bent to a curvature of 0.25 cm radius. That's not actually a significant curvature on the scale of something that is much smaller than a millimeter.
It does sound like these engineers touting the flexibility of the processor not because it's an important real-world requirement, but only because it justifies the work they are doing.
The official "organic" is stupid, because many organic compounds are not of biological origin; e.g. fluorinated or chlorinated hydrocarbons. Even compounds carbon-silicon bonds are called "organosilicon".
Then there is the problem that some molecules in living things have inorganic components, like organo-metallic compounds (haemoglobin, chlorophyll, ...).
The "organic food" people have reclaimed the word for a use which is closer to what it suggests: originating in the organs of a living thing.
A pesticide with chlorinated benzene rings does not originate in a living thing, and neither does silicone rubber.
Plenty of those exists. No flexible processor necessary. http://www.smarthome.com/_/ProductResults.aspx?Ntt=freeze
The "organic food" people have reclaimed the word for a use which is closer to what it suggests: originating in the organs of a living thing.
In other words the neo-Luddite "organic food" people have rekindled vitalism.
A bike chain is not really all that flexible, even in the direction of the hinging.
Also, I have seen, recently, bicycles with rubber belts (with teeth). I'm not sure why, but some people seem to think they are worth manufacturing.
Flexibility has its uses. In this case, the flexibility may be useful at scales where the simply small well tend to bind, much the way a bike chain will tend to bind.
Computer memory is just fancy paper, CPUs just fancy pens with fancy erasers; the 'net is just a fancy backyard fence.
I didn't think about blending (although it's an interesting thought, would these tend (statistically) to survive a blender or to be blended by a blender?
But what I noticed is that 4000 would be a bit over half the transistors necessary for a 6809, and that induced a daydream about running a bunch of OS9-6809 hardware instances in the bracelet you give your wife. Or having a cluster of TRS 80 Color Computers in your belt.
Computer memory is just fancy paper, CPUs just fancy pens with fancy erasers; the 'net is just a fancy backyard fence.