According to the latest progress of electronics published in the British "Nature" magazine, a scientific research team from Cambridge, UK reported that they have produced a flexible 32-bit microprocessor. The microprocessor is made by a scientific research team combining metal oxide thin film transistors and flexible polyimide (a high-performance plastic), called "PlasticARM". The emergence of this device has encouraged the development of low-cost and fully flexible intelligent integrated systems.
With the continuous development of the smart industry, from laptops to cars to various smart devices, microprocessors are an important part of all electronic devices. About 50 years ago, Intel created the world's first commercial microprocessor: a 4-bit CPU (Central Processing Unit) with 2,300 transistors and can only perform simple arithmetic operations. The most advanced 64-bit silicon microprocessor has 30 billion transistors and is manufactured using 7nm processing technology. Today, the microprocessor is so entrenched in the business process that it has become a "meta-invention", that is, a tool that can implement other inventions.
When the chip market is in a difficult situation, the demand for processors, chips and various semiconductors is very urgent. If a microprocessor with a lower cost and smarter can be introduced, it means that it can be mass-produced faster and move towards a smarter system. However, just as computer equipment is dominated by traditional silicon technology, the cost and low flexibility of silicon processors limit their feasibility in manufacturing smart daily applications. The flexible electronics product can solve these problems, but the production of flexible microprocessors requires enough transistors for meaningful calculations, which is a difficult problem.
The "PlasticARM" processor is built in a circuit that can operate from internal memory.The current version cannot be updated after assembly, but the research team believes that future iterations may implement programmable memory.
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