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Can someone explain what this technology is about, I wasn't able to get any sort of understanding from this post. What exactly are they printing ? Are the tra
by tgflynn 11y ago
Can someone explain what this technology is about, I wasn't able to get any sort of understanding from this post.
What exactly are they printing ? Are the transistors actually made of plastic instead of doped silicon ? If so what feature sizes are possible with this technology ? How does the manufacturing process compare with Si ? etc...
- colechristensen 11y agoThey printed a microcontroller die using organic semiconductors. The feature size is 2 microns. The technology is somewhat comparable to burning optical discs. What you can imagine out of this technology is a moore's law type reduction in feature size. Not too far off you could imagine a box where you could print arbitrary chips on a whim. What it is is orders of magnitude cheaper and faster production of complex microchips.
- tgflynn 11y agoI've heard of organic semiconductors but I had no idea they had advanced to the point where they could be used for an SoC. Is 2 microns small enough for an ARM core ? This sounds like it could become very important. Do you know of any sites that do a better job of explaining this technology ?
- mrob 11y agoIt's smaller than the ARM2 (first commercially available ARM), which was 2.5µm according to http://everything2.com/title/ARM2 http://everything2.com/title/ARM2 .
- yuhong 11y agoThey are doing a Cortex M0, which is their lowest end ARM core. I think the 2 micron NMOS process basically dates from the early 1980s.
- legulere 11y agoI guess it still wouldn't compete with silicon chips. So what is it competing with? The market that's currently using FPGAs and development of silicon ASICs?
- colechristensen 11y agoI could see it taking a chunk of FPGA and custom ASIC markets, but also making new markets for itself where small scales and low costs lower the barrier for entry.
- Tuna-Fish 11y ago> What it is is orders of magnitude cheaper and faster production of complex microchips Specifically, it allows orders of magnitude cheaper and faster one-off chips. The manufacturing method they use will always lose against current methods when making a lot of chips in bulk, but right now if you want an ASIC, the first chip costs the same as the next million, and this is something they can change.