Resumen de Next stretch for plastic electronics.
The article looks at the future of plastic electronics as of August 2004. Strong, flexible, lightweight and cheap, plastics have acquired an additional attribute in recent years: the ability to function as semiconductors, forming diodes and transistors in plastic integrated circuits. Now, as the first plastic electronics products are hitting the market in displays that use organic light-emitting diodes, the stage is set for a new era of pervasive computing with polymers. A key advantage of organic transistors over silicon is their ease of fabrication. In general, organic semiconductors have lower mobility than their inorganic counterparts do, resulting in slower switching speeds. Plastic electronics will soon be coming to market in radio-frequency identification tags. In December 2003 at the annual International Electron Devices Meeting, researchers from Infineon described two different types of memory chip based on organic polymers. One can imagine fabrics made of electronic textiles with controllable properties. Such wearable computers could monitor the individual's vital signs or the surrounding environment. In November 2003 Takao Someya and his coworkers at the University of Tokyo announced the use of pentacene transistors in a flexible sheet to form a pressure-sensitive skin that could be used to give a robot a sense of touch. INSET: CONDUCTIVE PLASTICS.
