Silicon Chips Are So Yesterday - The Future is Plastic Chips!

Today's processors are built on silicon. But are there alternatives? It turns out you can build flexible electronic devices using a plastic substrates with thin-film transistors (TFTs). Arm, in partnership with PragmatIC, has built a fully functional Cortex-M0+ microprocessor including the interrupt controller, IO, RAM, and ROM on plastic. It is called PlasticArm!




#garyexplains

[petefrasersoft]

When I was at university, we did a spoof lecture to the first years introducing wood chips :)

[DarkPaadin]

let's overclock the plastic SoC and see if it melts

[DennouNeko]

I'm kinda interested in seeing an ARM microprocessor combined with a TFT, maybe even OLED display on single sheet of plastic. With what was shown in this video, it sounds actually within the reach. Could work as anything from clock, digital thermometer, adjusting and showing expiration date, calendar you can slap on the surface of a mirror and so on...

[NoirpoolSea]

We have arrived at the Jetsons episode where Elroy was bugging his mom to get a certain brand of cereal because the box could be used as a computer when the food was gone.. Back when I was a kid, a couple of times records were put on the back of a box. It was the Archie's as I recall and I had two different records. (Of course, nothing stopping anyone from putting computer software on the record..)

[aimanrahman]

Plastic arm sounds like a prosthetic company

[MarkKeller]

Man, the future is going to be amazing ... if we can get there.

[ADHJkvsNgsMBbTQe]

Combined with medical sensors for diabetes or, for example, blood pressure stick-on patches, a computing device on plastic could really help save lives and cost.

[benwhite]

Presumably thinner and lighter substrate. So although its bigger than its sillicone cousin. if its lighter it means a great leap forward for aeronautoics and space flight.
3D chip design on polymer substrates would technically be printable. So you could just have the raw materials and a printer to repair components on a ship. Instead of having to take spares up with you.

[taktuscat]

Bringing "MicroPlastic" to a whole new level

[JordanLira]

A fully functional Cortex-M0+ microprocessor seems impressive, but I would love to know about thermals interactions on these kinds of chips.

[ok]

The spy capabilities of this is insane.

[shresth]

Plastic is so today. Waiting for the day when potato chips can run crysis

[soulife]

A rolling 'Use By' date would be pretty neat.
Mom: "Johnny. why did the milk go down by 5 days?! Did you leave it on the counter again?!"

[rahulraveendran]

Will the chip melt on high temperature since it is plastic?

[MarkKeller]

*GARY!!!*
Good morning Professor!
Good morning fellow classmates!
Stay safe out there everyone!

[KhanjanYT]

Gary can confidently say the world is not flat because he knows flat earthers will never click on video titles that start with silicon cpu and he is not gonna loose a single subscriber

[Ked_gaming]

This is great but I don't think adding plastic processors to plastic food packaging will reduce waste if not amplify the impact on the environment. We already can't recycle all of our plastics because there's so many different types, adding a chip on it would be a disaster

[GradeMADE]

Gary. commenting from RSA. This is extremely on the cutting edge of tech and science as is all your uploads.
Keep it up as you inspire a younger generation. and we need more teachers like you.

I am hoping to start my own channel one of these days but I have been procrastinating.
I have Live/Studio Filming Experience and Audio Training and Photography, I am my own Artist without a platform or content any suggestions.

[abdullahamir]

Great, like we need more plastic produced for some performance gains.

[SongShiyu]

Thank God that unlike silicone chips, potato chips will never become obsolete!