8 ms·

The first high-yield, sub-penny plastic processor

148 points by sohkamyung 4y ago

olliej 4y ago
My reading of this seems to be a matter of them simply reducing the chip complexity (down to 4 bit) so they can obviously have fewer components on the die. Aside from that simplification, I can't find anything actually new techniques. It also continues to annoy me that semiconductor-on-plastic gets labelled as a plastic processor.
- ggm 4y ago
  Is the cost of the substrate a huge barrier in the field? I recall when gallium arsenide first came to market and when whatever was magic about ibm "copper" and diamond/graphite. Each time, it's wound up highly context specific and frankly not very informative to the market as I saw it. A cheap plastic substrate for low gate count functions might be a niche which fills supply chains in smart disposables, rfid and other contexts: cans of soup which tell you when their subject to a recall.. (another dream in rfid which never happened btw)
  - wbl 4y ago
    GaAs is a workhorse in the RF world and let people replace a lot of vaccuum tubes.
    - ggm 4y ago
      Also switching power supplies I believe.
- acover 4y ago
  It seems like they changed a lot and got a hugely different niche. > Instead of adapting an existing microcontroller architecture to plastic, Kumar’s team started from scratch to create a design called Flexicore. “Yield goes down very quickly as you increase gate count,” says Kumar. Knowing that, they came up with a design meant to minimize the number of gates needed. Using 4-bit and 8-bit logic instead of 16-bit or 32-bit helped. As did separating the memory that stores instructions from the memory that stores data. But they also cut down on the number and complexity of the instructions the processor is capable of executing. > The team further simplified, by designing the processor so it executes an instruction in a single clock cycle instead of the mulit-step pipelines of today’s CPUs. Then they designed logic that implements those instructions by reusing parts, further reducing the gate count. “In general, we were able to simplify the design of FlexiCores by tailoring them to the needs of flexible applications, which tend to be computationally simple,” says Nathaniel Bleier, Kumar's student. > All of this resulted in a 5.6 square millimeter 4-bit FlexiCore made up of just 2,104 semiconductor devices (about the same as the number of transistors in an Intel 4004 from 1971) versus some 56,340 devices for PlasticARM.
  - mrtnmcc 4y ago
    By reducing gate count on the processor, they effectively will make the programs longer (more instructions to do the same thing), but it doesn't seem like they are counting memory here..
  - londons_explore 4y ago
    It does raise the question... Why didn't they just use an Intel 4004... The patents have long expired and plenty of other companies make very old intel clones to out in modern products (eg. Most optical mice use a 50 year old intel to control a custom DSP to do image processing to figure out which way you're moving the mouse)
    - derefr 4y ago
      One of their (presumably motivated) choices was to use a Harvard architecture; which a 4004 isn’t.
    - monocasa 4y ago
      Probably because NMOS masks don't translate well to this technology. And the chip has big standard cell auto placed and routed energy, so it's probably not that big of a deal for the benefit to be working in a sane HDL before hardening the design. And the ubiquitous 8051s don't typically use Intel masks AFAIK for the same reasons. You really want to optimize for whatever process node currently makes sense.
- ineedasername 4y ago
  >It also continues to annoy me that semiconductor-on-plastic gets labelled as a plastic processor. It's pretty common to call current processors "silicon chips", what's wrong with calling ones on a plastic substrate plastic chips?
  - AdamH12113 4y ago
    In silicon ICs, the silicon is actually part of the transistors.
    - ineedasername 4y ago
      Yes, but my impression (maybe wrong) is that the reference to silicon chips comes from the use of the substrate.
inamberclad 4y ago
Great, a thinking banana.
- lmc 4y ago
  We are all thinking bananas (with a little rounding) [0] [0]: https://www.pfizer.com/news/articles/how_genetically_related_are_we_to_bananas https://www.pfizer.com/news/articles/how_genetically_related...
  - scoopertrooper 4y ago
    Speak for yourself, I haven't had a thought in years. I'm allll banana.
    - lmc 4y ago
- Zenst 4y ago
  Would a bananna have enough power to power this I'm now wondering, and a quick search yeilds a yes - https://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2017/11/07/malang-students-produce-electricity-from-banana-skins.html https://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2017/11/07/malang-studen...
jfoutz 4y ago
if only they could put a little red led in the core. I realize the wafer has no bus, but I have an irrational desire for an all plastic 4 bit connection machine. I can handle failed nodes on the front machine. I want to allocate a zector of bites and make the lights blink.
mikewarot 4y ago
We discussed a different project from the same source a little over a month ago[1]. Yes, they are making transistors out of plastic[2]. ”We coat everything on that, then peel it off and reuse the glass a carriers which means we can use silicon equipment.” That they manage to get this to work at all is amazing. I view this as a technology demonstrator more than anything else. It looks like there's a pent up demand for low end processing that this might fill. Still no comment about this from Sam Zeloof[3] 8) [1] - https://fuse.wikichip.org/news/6648/reincarnating-the-6502-using-flexible-tft-tech-for-iot/ https://fuse.wikichip.org/news/6648/reincarnating-the-6502-u... [2] - https://www.eenewseurope.com/en/first-300mm-fab-for-the-uk/ https://www.eenewseurope.com/en/first-300mm-fab-for-the-uk/ [3] - https://twitter.com/szeloof https://twitter.com/szeloof
glouwbug 4y ago
Soon it'll run EC2 instances
- rini17 4y ago
  Hard to imagine how shuttling data thousands of kilometers to/from subpenny 4-bit CPU can make any sense. But I'm certain someone will try this because !cloud!.
spoonjim 4y ago
What's the advantage of a processor that costs less than a penny? I would think that the connectors, battery, I/O, etc. would cost at least 10-25 cents for pretty much anything you can think of. So not sure how much you gain from making the CPU so cheap, unless there are other benefits like power consumption.
- londons_explore 4y ago
  There are ways to print solar panels on a plastic substrate too, and led's look possible. NFC antennas are already doable with the same process. When all the devices can be 'printed', you might be able to put electronics on pages in books/newspapers or on labels of products for zero cents because you're already putting that paper through a printing press.
  - Zenst 4y ago
    Ah, the future of 3D home printers as we all dream of just took another step closer.
ziftface 4y ago
Why would anyone actively work towards "ubiquitous electronics"? That sounds like a nightmare.
- colordrops 4y ago
  Some people say electronics of any sort are a nightmare. Where do you draw the line?
  - qayxc 4y ago
    I'd draw the line by trying to evaluate the utility of adding electronics vs. not adding it. RFID tags on clothing and other such items - good and reasonable, because it aids with logistics and has no major downsides for the customer (and potentially adds value, e.g. by including washing instruction for supported washing machines that could warn you if the settings don't match the clothes the put in). Adding internet connectivity to most household appliances - questionable at best, actually reducing utility at worst (see [0]). AI-powered fridges [1] - bad value, gimmicky idea that drives up prices, makes the system more prone to failure (added complexity), more expensive, and adds little to no value: So you want to know what's in your fridge while standing in front of it? Good idea: just open it to take a peek inside. Bad idea: adding an LCD screen to the door that activates if you knock on the fridge door [2] So you want to know what's inside your fridge at home while grocery shopping, so you don't accidentally forget to buy something or buy something you already have? Bad idea: add AI powered item detection and internet connectivity to your fridge that then communicates with your smartphone, may get bricked remotely [0], get infected by malware, or become expensive to fix. Good idea: add the same functionality in the form of a smartphone app that either scans barcodes or uses (local!) AI to identify items (e.g. by taking a snapshot of the fridge's content) and that can auto-generate a shopping list for refilling the fridge or by matching its content against a weekly plan of meals (feel free to implement this idea and make millions of it, I'll allow it). There's certainly more and better examples to be found if you look for them, but these are just some quick examples illustrating what a quick cost-benefit-analysis could look like. [0] https://www.electromaker.io/blog/article/electrolux-accidentally-bricks-thousands-of-microwaves-with-ota-update https://www.electromaker.io/blog/article/electrolux-accident... [1] https://www.theverge.com/2020/1/2/21046822/samsung-lg-smart-fridge-family-hub-instaview-thinq-ai-ces-2020 https://www.theverge.com/2020/1/2/21046822/samsung-lg-smart-... [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4aeGzafgbQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4aeGzafgbQ
colordrops 4y ago
I've never heard of this before, and was confused and thought the processor itself is made of plastic. If I understand correctly it's actually a metal processor like any other on top of a flexible plastic film.
apienx 4y ago
The 2000 Nobel prize in chemistry was awarded for the discovery of organic/polymer semiconductors. The field's come a long way and there has been lots of innovation happening since. Prototypes of polymer-based ICs is nothing new (I've seen plenty of them over the last decade). Metal is still preferred for interconnects, but that's pretty cheap to process in roll-to-roll. I can vouch for this being legit. That said, polymers (soft matter) doesn't do well in heat (or light), so applications are (and will forever be) restricted to low-cost throw-away devices IMO. Shameful plug: I'm first author of this paper reporting a world record for transistor transconductance (all technologies combined). https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/advs.201500305 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/advs.2015003...
- rasz 4y ago
  My mind immediately went to Bell Labs Jan Schön superconducting plastics almost landing him a Nobel https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nfDoml-Db64 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nfDoml-Db64 (spoiler alert - it was all a scam)
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- DoingIsLearning 4y ago
  > That said, polymers (soft matter) doesn't do well in heat (or light), so applications are (and will forever be) restricted to low-cost throw-away devices IMO. I can think of plenty of sterile single-use 'use cases' in Medical Devices where a throw away polymer processor would be useful but an existing semi-conductor processor would not make financial sense to use.
  - Lester_Square 4y ago
    > I can think of plenty of sterile single-use 'use cases' in Medical Devices where a throw away polymer processor would be useful but an existing semi-conductor processor would not make financial sense to use. Could you provide some examples?
- Taniwha 4y ago
m12k 4y ago
Does anyone have a good idea for use cases for these? It seems a lot of use cases for "small, cheap electronics" are already covered by RFID, where you keep the processing "smarts" in the device that reads the RFID. So when do you need actual computation to take part on each tiny chip? Some kind of "smart dust" mesh network? (assuming you can pair these chips with an antenna and power source)
- __alexs 4y ago
  These devices are something like one tenth the price of a regular passive RFID tag.
  - Zenst 4y ago
    That may well be down to the cost of the metal to make the inductive coil. Now if you add the ability to do comparable RFID comms using this chip, then how would the costs compare is what we do not know.
    - __alexs 4y ago
      Copper is definitely not cheap but I doubt there's more than 0.5g in most passive RFID tags.
- chillingeffect 4y ago
  Sure... replace any barcode with one and it can remember its history of scanning.
  - incrudible 4y ago
    What is the use of that, then? Also, how does that require computation?
- smaudet 4y ago
  Just brainstorming, if the chip is large enough you could just plop a reader down on it.... not as convenient as RFID but then you could sell a reader which reads info off of bananas, e.g. Why the consumer would want to read info off of a banana, great question, but.
Zenst 4y ago
I kind of feel it is going to end up being used in food packaging, marketed along the lines of smart-packaging. Not sure how well the sensor market is and if some could be built in if not already, but it sure does seem to be that such cheap plastic chips only lean themselves being a cheap disposable item. What value they will add, may well vary, but a few pennies upon many items they would be targeting, well those items mostly borderline latent-landfill at best and whilst it is cheap upfront. Is it cheap to recycle or more costly? Equally the enviromental risks of the ones not recycled is often overlooked and easy to say something is recyclable when that depends upon every single one being recycled. many recyclable plastic waste in the environment already, so I'm somewhat of mixed feelings about this in the respect of how it may well pan out being utilized.
- chillingeffect 4y ago
  There will be a mixture of beneficial and wasteful uses. Ppl will say the good outweighs the bad bc they don't know how to measure environmental and personal health outcomes. Ppl who question it will be villified and called luddites for besmirching the godly triology of Innovation, Science, and Dopamine. But the true crazies will be the ones connecting it to defending our country and saving children.
- ClumsyPilot 4y ago
  Now they can put digital cooking for tracking onto physical cookies you buy. Hopefully just the packaging but i would not be surprised if someone puts them inside clothing or food.
lifeisstillgood 4y ago
I love the teaching potential here - program this 4 or 8 bit processor. They are so cheap you can give them to pupils in volume that you don't care how they experiment with them, and there is potential that they are simple enough to literally fit in your head. More of these please - the opportunities must be there
- smaudet 4y ago
  I'm curious what they will be able to hook up to one, and how it will be programmed - if you add a tiny amount of flash this could definitely be interesting, maybe have a dollar processor though. The use cases for a student are more difficult to imagine - turn a light on an IO port is fun and somewhat education but you will need to do something more informative, like generate a coded signal, i.e. simulate an RFID chip (what I presume the commercial goal is here as well), but then vary based on some input(s)? Its the same issue as with the current crop of low-cost computers - Raspberry Pi is great, but its most useful applications are due to its ethernet port and ability to drive a display, both of which drive up the price and board size.
  - lifeisstillgood 4y ago
    It is a fair point - I just got excited about heading back to a few thousand transistors that we can understand idea. I doubt there are more than ten people who can reason about the latest things coming out of Intel. One presumes that there must be some general purpose processor else this is just a RFID specific die (It does say ALU, PC and branch logic) so one assumes the idea is to be able to flash something some how. Then again, the cost of hooking up a die to flash it must exceed 1c so ... oh I am just talking in circles.
- rasz 4y ago
  simple silicon micros are also ridiculously cheap, its the packaging that kills you and makes them rarely go below $1.
mrfusion 4y ago
Would it be possible to 3d print with this? That could be a game changer.
sydthrowaway 4y ago
Asking the dumb question. How does plastic conduct electricity...
- MisterTea 4y ago
  From the article: "The processors his team built were made using the flexible thin-film semiconductor indium gallium zinc oxide (IGZO), which can be built on plastic and continues to work even when bent around a radius of millimeters." It's not the plastic that conducts, instead it is the foundation which the conducting material is built upon.
  - sydthrowaway 4y ago
    And what's the medium for current semiconductors
chillingeffect 4y ago
Implementing security with this little state space will be a challenge. Especially with "macro" probe-able circuits.
transfire 4y ago
Sounds to me they are very close to being able make a plastic 6502 processor. That would be huge. There is a ton of code (and programmers) out there that could make use of it in short order.
tonypags 4y ago
What's the environmental impact for adding more cheap plastic to all of the things? Serious question. The onus should be placed on the producer to ensure they are sustainable (the opposite of how it's always been done, by the consumer). The article makes no mention of this. I get that we're still at the laboratory phase, but I think it should still be part of the discussion.

148 points by sohkamyung 4y ago

My reading of this seems to be a matter of them simply reducing the chip complexity (down to 4 bit) so they can obviously have fewer components on the die. Aside from that simplification, I can't find anything actually new techniques. It also continues to annoy me that semiconductor-on-plastic gets labelled as a plastic processor.

ggm 4y ago
Is the cost of the substrate a huge barrier in the field? I recall when gallium arsenide first came to market and when whatever was magic about ibm "copper" and diamond/graphite. Each time, it's wound up highly context specific and frankly not very informative to the market as I saw it. A cheap plastic substrate for low gate count functions might be a niche which fills supply chains in smart disposables, rfid and other contexts: cans of soup which tell you when their subject to a recall.. (another dream in rfid which never happened btw)
- wbl 4y ago
  GaAs is a workhorse in the RF world and let people replace a lot of vaccuum tubes.
  - ggm 4y ago
    Also switching power supplies I believe.
acover 4y ago
It seems like they changed a lot and got a hugely different niche. > Instead of adapting an existing microcontroller architecture to plastic, Kumar’s team started from scratch to create a design called Flexicore. “Yield goes down very quickly as you increase gate count,” says Kumar. Knowing that, they came up with a design meant to minimize the number of gates needed. Using 4-bit and 8-bit logic instead of 16-bit or 32-bit helped. As did separating the memory that stores instructions from the memory that stores data. But they also cut down on the number and complexity of the instructions the processor is capable of executing. > The team further simplified, by designing the processor so it executes an instruction in a single clock cycle instead of the mulit-step pipelines of today’s CPUs. Then they designed logic that implements those instructions by reusing parts, further reducing the gate count. “In general, we were able to simplify the design of FlexiCores by tailoring them to the needs of flexible applications, which tend to be computationally simple,” says Nathaniel Bleier, Kumar's student. > All of this resulted in a 5.6 square millimeter 4-bit FlexiCore made up of just 2,104 semiconductor devices (about the same as the number of transistors in an Intel 4004 from 1971) versus some 56,340 devices for PlasticARM.
- mrtnmcc 4y ago
  By reducing gate count on the processor, they effectively will make the programs longer (more instructions to do the same thing), but it doesn't seem like they are counting memory here..
- londons_explore 4y ago
  It does raise the question... Why didn't they just use an Intel 4004... The patents have long expired and plenty of other companies make very old intel clones to out in modern products (eg. Most optical mice use a 50 year old intel to control a custom DSP to do image processing to figure out which way you're moving the mouse)
  - derefr 4y ago
    One of their (presumably motivated) choices was to use a Harvard architecture; which a 4004 isn’t.
  - monocasa 4y ago
    Probably because NMOS masks don't translate well to this technology. And the chip has big standard cell auto placed and routed energy, so it's probably not that big of a deal for the benefit to be working in a sane HDL before hardening the design. And the ubiquitous 8051s don't typically use Intel masks AFAIK for the same reasons. You really want to optimize for whatever process node currently makes sense.
ineedasername 4y ago
>It also continues to annoy me that semiconductor-on-plastic gets labelled as a plastic processor. It's pretty common to call current processors "silicon chips", what's wrong with calling ones on a plastic substrate plastic chips?
- AdamH12113 4y ago
  In silicon ICs, the silicon is actually part of the transistors.
  - ineedasername 4y ago
    Yes, but my impression (maybe wrong) is that the reference to silicon chips comes from the use of the substrate.

inamberclad 4y ago

Great, a thinking banana.

lmc 4y ago
We are all thinking bananas (with a little rounding) [0] [0]: https://www.pfizer.com/news/articles/how_genetically_related_are_we_to_bananas https://www.pfizer.com/news/articles/how_genetically_related...
- scoopertrooper 4y ago
  Speak for yourself, I haven't had a thought in years. I'm allll banana.
  - lmc 4y ago
Zenst 4y ago
Would a bananna have enough power to power this I'm now wondering, and a quick search yeilds a yes - https://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2017/11/07/malang-students-produce-electricity-from-banana-skins.html https://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2017/11/07/malang-studen...

jfoutz 4y ago

if only they could put a little red led in the core. I realize the wafer has no bus, but I have an irrational desire for an all plastic 4 bit connection machine. I can handle failed nodes on the front machine. I want to allocate a zector of bites and make the lights blink.

mikewarot 4y ago

We discussed a different project from the same source a little over a month ago[1]. Yes, they are making transistors out of plastic[2]. ”We coat everything on that, then peel it off and reuse the glass a carriers which means we can use silicon equipment.” That they manage to get this to work at all is amazing. I view this as a technology demonstrator more than anything else. It looks like there's a pent up demand for low end processing that this might fill. Still no comment about this from Sam Zeloof[3] 8) [1] - https://fuse.wikichip.org/news/6648/reincarnating-the-6502-using-flexible-tft-tech-for-iot/ https://fuse.wikichip.org/news/6648/reincarnating-the-6502-u... [2] - https://www.eenewseurope.com/en/first-300mm-fab-for-the-uk/ https://www.eenewseurope.com/en/first-300mm-fab-for-the-uk/ [3] - https://twitter.com/szeloof https://twitter.com/szeloof

glouwbug 4y ago

Soon it'll run EC2 instances

rini17 4y ago
Hard to imagine how shuttling data thousands of kilometers to/from subpenny 4-bit CPU can make any sense. But I'm certain someone will try this because !cloud!.

spoonjim 4y ago

What's the advantage of a processor that costs less than a penny? I would think that the connectors, battery, I/O, etc. would cost at least 10-25 cents for pretty much anything you can think of. So not sure how much you gain from making the CPU so cheap, unless there are other benefits like power consumption.

londons_explore 4y ago
There are ways to print solar panels on a plastic substrate too, and led's look possible. NFC antennas are already doable with the same process. When all the devices can be 'printed', you might be able to put electronics on pages in books/newspapers or on labels of products for zero cents because you're already putting that paper through a printing press.
- Zenst 4y ago
  Ah, the future of 3D home printers as we all dream of just took another step closer.

ziftface 4y ago

Why would anyone actively work towards "ubiquitous electronics"? That sounds like a nightmare.

colordrops 4y ago
Some people say electronics of any sort are a nightmare. Where do you draw the line?
- qayxc 4y ago
  I'd draw the line by trying to evaluate the utility of adding electronics vs. not adding it. RFID tags on clothing and other such items - good and reasonable, because it aids with logistics and has no major downsides for the customer (and potentially adds value, e.g. by including washing instruction for supported washing machines that could warn you if the settings don't match the clothes the put in). Adding internet connectivity to most household appliances - questionable at best, actually reducing utility at worst (see [0]). AI-powered fridges [1] - bad value, gimmicky idea that drives up prices, makes the system more prone to failure (added complexity), more expensive, and adds little to no value: So you want to know what's in your fridge while standing in front of it? Good idea: just open it to take a peek inside. Bad idea: adding an LCD screen to the door that activates if you knock on the fridge door [2] So you want to know what's inside your fridge at home while grocery shopping, so you don't accidentally forget to buy something or buy something you already have? Bad idea: add AI powered item detection and internet connectivity to your fridge that then communicates with your smartphone, may get bricked remotely [0], get infected by malware, or become expensive to fix. Good idea: add the same functionality in the form of a smartphone app that either scans barcodes or uses (local!) AI to identify items (e.g. by taking a snapshot of the fridge's content) and that can auto-generate a shopping list for refilling the fridge or by matching its content against a weekly plan of meals (feel free to implement this idea and make millions of it, I'll allow it). There's certainly more and better examples to be found if you look for them, but these are just some quick examples illustrating what a quick cost-benefit-analysis could look like. [0] https://www.electromaker.io/blog/article/electrolux-accidentally-bricks-thousands-of-microwaves-with-ota-update https://www.electromaker.io/blog/article/electrolux-accident... [1] https://www.theverge.com/2020/1/2/21046822/samsung-lg-smart-fridge-family-hub-instaview-thinq-ai-ces-2020 https://www.theverge.com/2020/1/2/21046822/samsung-lg-smart-... [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4aeGzafgbQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4aeGzafgbQ

colordrops 4y ago

I've never heard of this before, and was confused and thought the processor itself is made of plastic. If I understand correctly it's actually a metal processor like any other on top of a flexible plastic film.

apienx 4y ago

The 2000 Nobel prize in chemistry was awarded for the discovery of organic/polymer semiconductors. The field's come a long way and there has been lots of innovation happening since. Prototypes of polymer-based ICs is nothing new (I've seen plenty of them over the last decade). Metal is still preferred for interconnects, but that's pretty cheap to process in roll-to-roll. I can vouch for this being legit. That said, polymers (soft matter) doesn't do well in heat (or light), so applications are (and will forever be) restricted to low-cost throw-away devices IMO. Shameful plug: I'm first author of this paper reporting a world record for transistor transconductance (all technologies combined). https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/advs.201500305 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/advs.2015003...

rasz 4y ago
My mind immediately went to Bell Labs Jan Schön superconducting plastics almost landing him a Nobel https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nfDoml-Db64 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nfDoml-Db64 (spoiler alert - it was all a scam)
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
DoingIsLearning 4y ago
> That said, polymers (soft matter) doesn't do well in heat (or light), so applications are (and will forever be) restricted to low-cost throw-away devices IMO. I can think of plenty of sterile single-use 'use cases' in Medical Devices where a throw away polymer processor would be useful but an existing semi-conductor processor would not make financial sense to use.
- Lester_Square 4y ago
  > I can think of plenty of sterile single-use 'use cases' in Medical Devices where a throw away polymer processor would be useful but an existing semi-conductor processor would not make financial sense to use. Could you provide some examples?
Taniwha 4y ago

m12k 4y ago

Does anyone have a good idea for use cases for these? It seems a lot of use cases for "small, cheap electronics" are already covered by RFID, where you keep the processing "smarts" in the device that reads the RFID. So when do you need actual computation to take part on each tiny chip? Some kind of "smart dust" mesh network? (assuming you can pair these chips with an antenna and power source)

__alexs 4y ago
These devices are something like one tenth the price of a regular passive RFID tag.
- Zenst 4y ago
  That may well be down to the cost of the metal to make the inductive coil. Now if you add the ability to do comparable RFID comms using this chip, then how would the costs compare is what we do not know.
  - __alexs 4y ago
    Copper is definitely not cheap but I doubt there's more than 0.5g in most passive RFID tags.
chillingeffect 4y ago
Sure... replace any barcode with one and it can remember its history of scanning.
- incrudible 4y ago
  What is the use of that, then? Also, how does that require computation?
smaudet 4y ago
Just brainstorming, if the chip is large enough you could just plop a reader down on it.... not as convenient as RFID but then you could sell a reader which reads info off of bananas, e.g. Why the consumer would want to read info off of a banana, great question, but.

Zenst 4y ago

I kind of feel it is going to end up being used in food packaging, marketed along the lines of smart-packaging. Not sure how well the sensor market is and if some could be built in if not already, but it sure does seem to be that such cheap plastic chips only lean themselves being a cheap disposable item. What value they will add, may well vary, but a few pennies upon many items they would be targeting, well those items mostly borderline latent-landfill at best and whilst it is cheap upfront. Is it cheap to recycle or more costly? Equally the enviromental risks of the ones not recycled is often overlooked and easy to say something is recyclable when that depends upon every single one being recycled. many recyclable plastic waste in the environment already, so I'm somewhat of mixed feelings about this in the respect of how it may well pan out being utilized.

chillingeffect 4y ago
There will be a mixture of beneficial and wasteful uses. Ppl will say the good outweighs the bad bc they don't know how to measure environmental and personal health outcomes. Ppl who question it will be villified and called luddites for besmirching the godly triology of Innovation, Science, and Dopamine. But the true crazies will be the ones connecting it to defending our country and saving children.
ClumsyPilot 4y ago
Now they can put digital cooking for tracking onto physical cookies you buy. Hopefully just the packaging but i would not be surprised if someone puts them inside clothing or food.

lifeisstillgood 4y ago

I love the teaching potential here - program this 4 or 8 bit processor. They are so cheap you can give them to pupils in volume that you don't care how they experiment with them, and there is potential that they are simple enough to literally fit in your head. More of these please - the opportunities must be there

smaudet 4y ago
I'm curious what they will be able to hook up to one, and how it will be programmed - if you add a tiny amount of flash this could definitely be interesting, maybe have a dollar processor though. The use cases for a student are more difficult to imagine - turn a light on an IO port is fun and somewhat education but you will need to do something more informative, like generate a coded signal, i.e. simulate an RFID chip (what I presume the commercial goal is here as well), but then vary based on some input(s)? Its the same issue as with the current crop of low-cost computers - Raspberry Pi is great, but its most useful applications are due to its ethernet port and ability to drive a display, both of which drive up the price and board size.
- lifeisstillgood 4y ago
  It is a fair point - I just got excited about heading back to a few thousand transistors that we can understand idea. I doubt there are more than ten people who can reason about the latest things coming out of Intel. One presumes that there must be some general purpose processor else this is just a RFID specific die (It does say ALU, PC and branch logic) so one assumes the idea is to be able to flash something some how. Then again, the cost of hooking up a die to flash it must exceed 1c so ... oh I am just talking in circles.
rasz 4y ago
simple silicon micros are also ridiculously cheap, its the packaging that kills you and makes them rarely go below $1.

mrfusion 4y ago

Would it be possible to 3d print with this? That could be a game changer.

sydthrowaway 4y ago

Asking the dumb question. How does plastic conduct electricity...

MisterTea 4y ago
From the article: "The processors his team built were made using the flexible thin-film semiconductor indium gallium zinc oxide (IGZO), which can be built on plastic and continues to work even when bent around a radius of millimeters." It's not the plastic that conducts, instead it is the foundation which the conducting material is built upon.
- sydthrowaway 4y ago
  And what's the medium for current semiconductors

chillingeffect 4y ago

Implementing security with this little state space will be a challenge. Especially with "macro" probe-able circuits.

transfire 4y ago

Sounds to me they are very close to being able make a plastic 6502 processor. That would be huge. There is a ton of code (and programmers) out there that could make use of it in short order.

tonypags 4y ago

What's the environmental impact for adding more cheap plastic to all of the things? Serious question. The onus should be placed on the producer to ensure they are sustainable (the opposite of how it's always been done, by the consumer). The article makes no mention of this. I get that we're still at the laboratory phase, but I think it should still be part of the discussion.