Infineon takes new approach to plastic chips
By Junko Yoshida
MUNICH, Germany–When an Infineon Technologies researcher presents a technical paper on the company’s development of high quality organic transistors and circuits this Wednesday (Feb. 12) at ISSCC, he and his research team based in Erlangen, Germany, will seek to signal to the global semiconductor industry that the emergence of plastic chips is no longer science fiction.
The company maintains that plastic is back, cheaper than silicon and offers an abundance of potential applications.
A core team of five researchers, including organic and inorganic chemists, a surface scientist and electronics engineers, are working at Infineon’s research laboratories to develop a wide range of processes to make plastic chips. Many processes are similar to those of conventional chip-making techniques. These include deposition processes and photolithography as well as printing patterning techniques.