The First Organic Processor By Europeans

The Europeans will introduce the first organic processor made up of organic semiconductors this week at the International Solid-State Circuits Conference, in San Francisco. This processor has 4000 transistors and 8 bit logic. The processing speed is low as that of a 1970s era silicon model. But the advantage is that the chip can bend. The designers claim that this chip would flood the market with cheap and flexible displays and sensors. For example it will record the average water pressure in the pipe wrapped around by these type of sensor sheets. “The key to the chip’s design was taming the somewhat unruly organic transistor", says Jan Genoe, a polymer and molecular electronics researcher at Belgian nanotech research center Imec, in Leuven, who led the research with colleague Kris Myny” (Quoted : IEEE spectrum).

[​IMG]But there is a bit discrepancy in this. The transistor turns on if the gate voltage is exceeded above a certain threshold frequency. But in organic chips, the swapping of silicon and polymer may be different for different setups. Each one may have different threshold. These chips are also used to on and off the displays in some e-reader display. They have given an additional back gate to the organic semiconductor. This controls the electric field in the semiconductor and avoids accidental switching.

The 25 micrometer thick chip is fabricated on the substrate made up of polyethylene naphthalate which is a plastic. On top of this a 25 nanometer thick layer of gold is also placed. Above that, we have an organic dielectric followed by again a patterned layer of gold. Lastly the organic semiconductor made up of pentacene is placed on top of it. After this the chip was tested for a 16 line program. The average execution rate was 6 instructions per second.

The scientists claimed that it would be revolutionary if these chips were made at one tenth of the cost of similar silicon circuit.the commercial production will require a trained labour and new measuring tools for the operators. Research on more complex silicon chips is being done which would eventually replace the peripheral electron circuitry in displays etc.

These chips in the near future will provide a cheap, light and robust alternative for the conventional chips. Take a bow to the flexible chip. ( quoted: IEEE spectrum).

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