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!"

Comments

Punchcards

[goombah99]

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.

Re:Punchcards

[goombah99]

It actually predates Turing all the way back to Hollerith taking his inspiration from the Jacquard Loom http://www.divms.uiowa.edu/~jones/cards/history.html

Re:Punchcards

[Anonymous Coward]

It actually predates Turing all the way back to Hollerith taking his inspiration from the Jacquard Loom

Do you mean Jean Loom Jacquard, Captain of the USS Interweave?

Overclocking Risk?

[El Torico]

If I overclock a CPU made from this would it burst into flame?

A cotton transistor takes the prize

[cold fjord]

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.

Re:A cotton transistor takes the prize

[Samantha Wright]

Now just wait a cotton-picking minute. Anything that yields a crop of puns this good must surely be fabricated.

Re:A cotton transistor takes the prize

[cold fjord]

Anything that yields a crop of puns this good must surely be fabricated.

I'm not sure that I fully take your meaning. Are you suggesting that they need to spin up manufacturing? Or are you trying to gin up a controversy because you think this yarn about cotton transistors is made up out of whole cloth? If it really works, there could be enormous potential in high-speed communications and backplanes, interfacing to fibre, and switching fabrics, for example. This could be an interesting investment opportunity. If it takes off, they'll need some good marketing, and a spokesman. I think that guy from the Matrix would be perfect! What was his name..... Agent Smith.... Hugo something?

perfect for

[cold fjord]

foldingclothes@home*

*With apologies

Not that many connections

[artor3]

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.