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Transistor Made From Cotton Yarn
MrSeb writes "Altering the very fabric of technophilic society, a multinational team of material scientists have created electric circuits and transistors out of cotton fibers (abstract). Two kinds of transistor were created: a field-effect transistor (FET), much like the transistors found in your computer's CPU; and an electrochemical transistor, which is similar but capable of switching at lower voltages, and thus better suited for wearable computers. Cotton itself is an insulator, but by using various coatings, the team from Italy, France, and the United States was able to make conductor and semiconductor cotton 'wires' that retained most of their flexibility. The immediate use-cases are clothes with built-in sensors (think radiation or heartbeat monitors), but ultimately, think of how many thousands of interconnections are in every piece of cotton clothing — you could make a fairly powerful computer!"
One of the first uses of punchcards-- indeed turing's inspirations-- was feeding patterns into looms. Somehow this is satisfyingly full circle in the age of steam punk.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
If the conductive elements are coatings on the threads, then are they insulated properly? Do you have to put on another layer of insulation? I should imagine that might hurt flexibility.
If I overclock a CPU made from this would it burst into flame?
In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is usually crucified.
The only logical thing I could think of for that would be one of those "@Home" projects but on a different crowd sourcing scale though even then battery life would suck.
Because I don't know you, but after three months my clothes for sure are not the same they were when I bought them.
Over the years I've spoken with many electrical engineers and software engineers, and heard much technical lore, but a cotton transistor? That is a yarn worthy of a prize.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
foldingclothes@home*
*With apologies
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
... Aunt Tillie knits up a high-performance supercomputer...
...of wet T-shirt contests?
ultimately, think of how many thousands of interconnections are in every piece of cotton clothing — you could make a fairly powerful computer!"
While that's a cute idea... a lot of transistors = a lot of heat.
Cotton fibers are not particularly known for their ability to tolerate high heat, and neither is human skin.
The cotton isn't a [semi]conductor, the coatings are. Still novel, though.
What happens if you catch your sleeve on a sharp corner, the shirt starts unravelling and your processor is strung across the room? I guess you go to your IT Tailor specialist.
Rocket Surgeon.
Because yarn is cheap, right.
From the summary: "think of how many thousands of interconnections are in every piece of cotton clothing — you could make a fairly powerful computer!""
There aren't that many connections. Assume a 200 thread count fabric, since it's both typical and makes the math easy. That thread count means in each square inch of fabric, you have 100 vertical threads and 100 horizontal, for a total of 10k crossings. To replicate just the old 100 MHz Pentium 1 processor (hardly what anyone would call a powerful computer), you'd need over two square feet of this stuff. If you want something decent, like what you might get in a modern smartphone, you'll need anywhere from ten to a hundred times that much. And remember that it won't run anywhere near the speeds of the IC, and that we haven't even allowed space for all the other essential bits of a computer (e.g. memory). If you want a powerful computer in your shirt, you're much better off sewing something tiny into the hem. Even then, the weight of the battery will be obnoxious.
Still very cool technology, but I see it being used for simpler distributed systems (like the mentioned sensors) rather than a fabric computer.
If you think your shirt could have enough interconnections to match modern semiconductor chips, you are sorely mistaken.
For a cotton shirt connections to operate properly, you need to ensure insulation between conductors. Since you're twisting around in your shirt, the insulation bands must be quite thick to allow the textile to stretch, compress and twist. Individual fibers can't be relied on, since multiple neighboring fibers can connect to them.
On the other hand, semiconductors are cased in box and are constructed at scale of tens of nanometers (at the moment). The boxing protects them from twisting effects, so neighboring tens-of-nanometers lines are not in risk of being arbitrarily reconnected.
Sure you could box cotton too, but then you'd just have a poorly performing weird semiconductor chip, not a shirt anymore.
Time traveling intel bunnies anyone?
First hardware that's actually well, soft-wear!
I didn't read the abstract but it seems like the biggest hurdle with any portable technology is power, more specifically battery life.
I predicted some 5-10 years ago that battery technology is due for a major advance, but I haven't seen it materialize. Sure, there have been a bunch of studies and experiments, but nothing impressive at the consumer level.
We don't live in Shouldland.
Great thinking since clothing NEVER is subjected to abuse...
What's with "THIS is the REAL global conspiracy!" tagged on at the end? It doesn't fit with the rest at all. (Posted AC since it's OT.)
Sure they're selling it for 99 but there are plenty of more interesting abstracts available on arxiv which range from Nobel Prize-winning papers to fodder for the igNobel.
Has someone liberated this pdf and placed it on a filesharing service or with the departure of Taco Slashdot's trying to be all legit?
How woul this be able to be cleaned? Not sure how this would work.
Flexible it may be but i think it will still need some sort of insulation on top to avoid short circuits and runs and pulled threads. I cannot imagine it being integrated into a fabric right on top in the open with lasting functionality
now, if it stops working you can either eat it... or in the case of cotton, use it to wipe out the mess :)
Never antropomorphize computers, they do not like that
Would have much more serious consequences.
In other news, TSA has now announced that in addition to not allowing the wearing of jewelry/accessories which have details vaguely resemble miniscule guns a few mm in length and not allowing the oh-so-dangerous hydrogen hydroxide aboard aircraft, they will also be banning cotton clothing due to recent chatter about the ability to weave dangerous devices into cotton fabric. Full story at 11.
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
You hand me a punchcard {zap} and my sleeve reboots?
Will it play Farmville?
What, no jokes about multi-threading?
Ahem, what about the not so insignificant details such as transistor speed, performance, scalability, yield, and reliability?
To get transistors to the level they're at, they've had to be very carefully shrunk and the silicon carefully controlled for resistance and impurity level, something that these deposited semiconductors will be many, many orders of magnitude worse in each and every parameter.
There's not a whole lot of point making transistors that are 1,000 times larger, 1,000,000 more power-hungry, have 100,000 times lower yield, 10,000 times slower, and have 10,000 times shorter life, (as a rough estimate).
So now we're going to all need technology export permits to send extra large sweaters overseas.
But will any of it work after you put it through the laundry, with detergent, and maybe bleach, and then the dryer?
mark
Does it work after you've washed and dried it 10 times in a row? No? Whoop.
wearable technology (think wristwatch) is the obvious goal.
And it is powered by those button batteries - CLEVER!!
Kids would love this; if the battery runs down, you can recharge by scuffing your feet on the carpet.
To use the cloth computer..... Wouldn't you have to catch the shuttle cock 1st? Then you have learn to curve the bullets path also?