Using origami-inspired electronics to extend Moore’s Law
Moore’s Law has been a tenet in the field of electronics for nearly 60 years. It states that the number of transistors on a computer chip will double every two years, without the cost of producing the chip rising much. Yet this scaling rule is now approaching its economic and physical limits. Stacking transistors is a promising solution for the future, with transistors being placed in 3D on top of each other. Yet current systems face their own restrictions, such as short-term lifespans and a limit to the number of layers able to be stacked. In the EU-funded ORIGENAL project, researchers developed a new 3D packaging concept for transistors, inspired by origami – the ancient Japanese technique of folding paper to create art. The new approach uses transistors built onto a thin foil, which can be bent and shaped to create 3D structures using a novel folding tool. Through this technique, thousands of layers can be stacked on top of each other, which could extend Moore’s Law for another few decades.
Electronics inspired by origami
The original idea for the dense 3D integration of transistors was inspired by electrolytic capacitors, which are essentially rolled-up foils which create a final cylindrical shape. “This is a very simple, fast and effective approach to go from 2D to 3D,” explains Daniel Neumaier, chair of Smart Sensor Systems at the University of Wuppertal. The challenge in using this approach for electronic circuits came with the interconnections perpendicular to the foil. “With rolling up, you always have the difficulty that the diameter is changing continually, making the interconnections very challenging,” says Neumaier, ORIGENAL project coordinator. So the team started considering other folding approaches, such as origami, and evaluated existing machines and processes from different fields including flexible electronics, thin-film photovoltaics and food packaging, where thin foils are handled. “For the interconnects, we were exploring processes for the foil via fabrication and alignment of the different slices,” explains Neumaier. “This all together resulted in the conceptual design of the folding tool.”
Developing a thin-film transistor
Through the project, the team also developed a thin-film transistor (TFT) technology on a mechanical flexible foil substrate based on 2D semiconductors. “The TFT technology developed is already considered as a promising solution for future logic devices by the semiconductor industry, across Europe and also globally,” adds Neumaier. “As we are well connected with key semiconductor players in Europe, knowledge and experience was spread properly,” he adds.
Disrupting the field of logic computing
While the technology could extend Moore’s Law into the distant future, developing it and bringing it to market will take time. “Bringing such a disruptive approach for logic devices to the market is a pretty long shot and will require significant research efforts in order to become competitive with existing solutions,” notes Neumaier. In the short term, the team is considering flexible sensor devices as a potential application scenario, where different components of the sensor system are realised on individual foils and stacked together for the final system. “This approach will allow us to use the best available technology for each component, and the technical challenge for the stacking is limited, as here not thousands but just a few layers need to be stacked,” Neumaier says.
Keywords
ORIGENAL, origami, electronic, computer, chip, Moore’s Law, transistors, folding, logic computing