News Brief [EYE-PODS]

Silicon circuits that bend and stretch recently took an important step away from the world of science-fiction novels and Hollywood movies toward the real world of medical devices and media players. A team of researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana- Champaign (UIUC) says it has printed silicon circuits onto plastic in the form of the same CMOS circuits that dominate digital logic today. The breakthrough brings researchers closer to printing circuits on plastic that approach the performance and reliability of silicon chips. The team had earlier shown that they could form circuits by transferring thin ribbons of silicon onto glue-coated plastic using a patterned rubber stamp. But the resulting devices used only n-type silicon, whereas CMOS logic has both n-type and p-type. CMOS circuits are generally more power-efficient, because current should flow through them only when their bits are flipping. In any portable electronic device, that means longer battery life. But in the case of plastic electronics, CMOS is even more important, because it reduces the amount of heat produced - which, left unchecked, could melt the plastic.