As microcontroller prices drop, they appear in more things. Today you'll find microcontrollers in your car, your home appliances, and even children's toys. But you don't see them often in things that are either too cheap or have to flex, such as a bandage. Part of the reason is the cost of silicon chips and one of the reasons is that silicon chips do not appreciate bending. What if you could make a CPU out of flexible plastic for less than a penny? Which applications will that open? PragmatIC - the company working to make this possible - thinks it will Open a whole new world of smart objects Which would be unimaginable today. He worked with a team at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign to create a prototype plastic CPU with interesting results.
It's still the stuff of research and dreams, but a team of researchers worked to produce 4-bit and 8-bit processors using IGZO - indium gallium zinc oxide - semiconductor technology. This technique can be applied to plastic and will still work if you bend it around a radius as small as a few millimeters.
It seems that the main problem is yield. When ARM put 32-bit M0 CPUs on plastic, the yield was poor due to the high gate count. These new processors are simplified 4-bit devices that account for 81% yield. At that yield, the equipment may cost less than a penny to produce.
The final design fits a 5.6 square millimeter die and contained about 2,100 devices – the equivalent of an Intel 4004. The M0, by contrast, includes more than 56,000 devices. The 8-bit plastic CPU also worked but had a lower yield. What would you do with a flexible CPU that costs a penny or two? Will it require more than a simple 4-bit processor?
Of course, the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign is home to a very famous fictional computer Nothing fancy. By the way, although the M0 was put on plastic, it was not without important agreement,
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