If you've been following statistics about the Internet of Things (IoT), which is growing by billions of devices every year, the numbers are pretty mind-boggling. But the truth is that expensive silicon chips are actually holding this rampant growth back.
But now researchers have designed a new plastic processor, which they estimate will be able to be mass-produced for less than a penny. That's right — the new Flexicore chips could kick-start a world in which everything — from bandages to bananas — could have a chip, according to a report by IEEE Spectrum.
The chip designs we currently use — even for the most basic microcontrollers — are too complex to be mass-produced in plastic: You surely won't see a plastic processor on our list of best CPUs for gaming. [...]
To address the peculiarities of plastic chip design, the University of Illinois team built the new Flexicore processor design from scratch. Because yields dive when processor gate count rise, they decided to make a minimal design that reduced the gate count and used 4-bit and 8-bit logic instead of 16-bit or 32-bit alternatives. [...]
A sample 4-bit FlexiCore processor is 5.6mm square and contains 2,104 semiconductor devices, similar to a classic Intel 4004 CPU. [...]
With this sub-penny plastic processor, and the move of flexible electronics from niche to mainstream, we may be seeing the dawn of truly ubiquitous electronics. The above research is going to be presented at the International Symposium on Computer Architecture later this month, so we should learn more about it and further development plans soon.
We speed headlong into our (dystopian?) IoT future.
See also: The First High-Yield, Sub-Penny Plastic Processor
(Score: 4, Funny) by krishnoid on Saturday June 18 2022, @02:03AM (7 children)
I thought Micro-plastics were *bad*.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 18 2022, @02:12AM (3 children)
Don't forget to peel it off the banana before you eat the banana peel.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 18 2022, @02:46AM
> Don't forget to peel it off the banana before you eat the banana peel.
Don't forget to peel it off the banana before you smoke the banana peel.
ftfy
(Score: 3, Funny) by stretch611 on Saturday June 18 2022, @04:54AM (1 child)
If you peel off the processor label from the banana peel, how will the 5g cell towers track you?
Now with 5 covid vaccine shots/boosters altering my DNA :P
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Opportunist on Saturday June 18 2022, @08:53AM
Just like they do now, with the cellphone in your pocket.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Saturday June 18 2022, @12:49PM (2 children)
Plastics in general are waste products of the oil refineries. They're going to become a lot less cost-efficient when they're not available as a no-cost byproduct of a hugely profitable non-renewable resource stream.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by Joe Desertrat on Monday June 20 2022, @01:08AM (1 child)
There are enough plastics floating in the oceans and in upper layers of landfills to make mining them a feasible low cost operation for at least a few years.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday June 20 2022, @02:18AM
A few years, sure. But those kids' playsets constructed with 20 lbs of plastic for 49.95? That's repackaging of waste material in primary colors for use by infants.
🌻🌻 [google.com]