The First Plastic Computer Processor 73
jcombel writes "There's been a lot of talk lately about developing replacements for silicon; how about a nearly-transparent film of plastic, woven into clothing or affixed directly to equipment? From the article, 'Researchers in Europe used 4,000 plastic, or organic, transistors to create the plastic microprocessor, which measures roughly two centimeters square and is built on top of flexible plastic foil. ... The processor can so far run only one simple program of 16 instructions. The commands are hardcoded into a second foil etched with plastic circuits that can be connected to the processor to "load" the program. This allows the processor to calculate a running average of an incoming signal, something that a chip involved in processing the signal from a sensor might do.'"
Re:And I still fail to see a use.... (Score:5, Interesting)
BCI devices.
A flexible sheet of plastic is more durable inside a human body than is a silicon substrate. Especially in soft tissues, like brain tissues. It weighs less, and as such tugs less on the tissue when the subject moves around, theoretically resulting in less neural scar tissue.
Alternatively, REALLY cheap processors for consumer toys.