Thin-film hybrid oxide-organic microprocessor
Wednesday, December 10, 2014 - 09:30
in Physics & Chemistry
Holst Centre, imec and their partner Evonik have realized a general-purpose 8-bit microprocessor, manufactured using complementary thin-film transistors (TFTs) processed at temperatures compatible with plastic foil substrates (250°C). The new "hybrid" technology integrates two types of semiconductors—metal-oxide for n-type TFTs (iXsenic, Evonik) and organic molecules for p-type TFTs—in a CMOS microprocessor circuit, operating at unprecedented for TFT technologies speed—clock frequency 2.1kHz. The breakthrough results were published online in Scientific Reports, an open access journal from the publisher of Nature.