Scientists create bendable memory chips that could lead to flexible electronics
Posted 06.04.2009 at 5:35 pm
4 Comments
Computer Memory You Can Bend
Are you reading this on your laptop? Are you ready to roll that laptop up and put it in your pocket? As we told you the other day, scientists revealed flexible coatings filled with e-ink that will turn just about any surface into a screen. Now other components of computers are breaking free from their silicon backbones and getting stretched. Next up: memory chips.
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Gadgets, Dan Smith, COMPUTING, flexible circuitry, FUTURE DESIGN, memory chip, memristorsThese new flexible memory chips are titanium oxide grafted onto what basically amounts to the transparencies used for overhead projectors. How’s that for repurposing technology you haven’t seen since grade school? What’s most amazing is that the structure of these memory chips are actually memristors - nanoscaled components that retain their resistance even when no current is passing though them - which could be the next step in faster computing and larger capacity, all packed in a drastically smaller size.
It’s unclear how much can be stored on this flexible memory, but once the chips are perfected, the creators claim that the process of producing them will be relatively simple and inexpensive. The implications on the future of electronics could be pretty wondrous. Imagine the design and functionality possibilities without the restraints of stiff, bulky computing. This could lead to tiny medical sensors or bendable computers. The future looks bright and twisted.
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Where can I find more information on the progress of flexible computers?
So, according to this article, I will be able to just fold my laptop into a tiny roll and put it into my pocket. That is a technology that we could use. The only problem that I can forsee is if it drops out; then you essentially lost a machine that holds, basically, your entire life.
Eventually, we'll all just have a computer in all of our clothing. Or we'll have a computer chip in our brains that makes us think a billion times faster and allows anyone who figures out how to hack it to crash us and essentially kill us. Fun times.
perhaps in the future, it might be possible to lay a piece of flexible electronic fabrice on a table and it will play that clothe like a cd, dvd, blu ray, or game console.