New Flexible RISC-V Semiconductor Has Great Potential

"For the first time, scientists have created a flexible programmable chip that is not made of silicon..." reports IEEE Spectrum - opening new possibilities for implantable devices, on-skin computers, brain-machine interfaces, and soft robotics. U.K.-based Pragmatic Semiconductor produced an "ultralow-power" 32-bit microprocessor, according to the article, and "The microchip's open-source RISC-V architecture suggests it might cost less than a dollar..." This shows potential for inexpensive applications like wearable healthcare electronics and smart package labels, according to the chip's inventors:For example, "we can develop an ECG patch that has flexible electrodes attached to the chest and a flexible microprocessor connected to flexible electrodes to classify arrhythmia conditions by processing the ECG data from a patient," says Emre Ozer, senior director of processor development at Pragmatic, a flexible chip manufacturer in Cambridge, England. Detecting normal heart rhythms versus an arrhythmia "is a machine learning task that can run in software in the flexible microprocessor," he says... Pragmatic sought to create a flexible microchip that cost significantly less to make than a silicon processor. The new device, named Flex-RV, is a 32-bit microprocessor based on the metal-oxide semiconductor indium gallium zinc oxide (IGZO). Attempts to create flexible devices from silicon require special packaging for the brittle microchips to protect them from the mechanical stresses of bending and stretching. In contrast, pliable thin-film transistors made from IGZO can be made directly at low temperatures onto flexible plastics, leading to lower costs... "Our end goal is to democratize computing by developing a license-free microprocessor," Ozer says... Other processors have been built using flexible semiconductors, such as Pragmatic's 32-bit PlasticARM and an ultracheap microcontroller designed by engineers in Illinois. Unlike these earlier devices, Flex-RV is programmable and can run compiled programs written in high-level languages such as C. In addition, the open-source nature of RISC-V also let the researchers equip Flex-RV with a programmable machine learning hardware accelerator, enabling artificial intelligence applications. Each Flex-RV microprocessor has a 17.5 square millimeter core and roughly 12,600 logic gates. The research team found Flex-RV could run as fast as 60 kilohertz while consuming less than 6 milliwatts of power... The Pragmatic team found that Flex-RV could still execute programs correctly when bent to a curve with a radius of 3 millimeters. Performance varied between a 4.3 percent slowdown to a 2.3 percent speedup depending on the way it was bent.

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