Naked Science Forum

Non Life Sciences => Technology => Topic started by: yor_on on 03/04/2012 08:15:43

Title: Invisible Microchips?
Post by: yor_on on 03/04/2012 08:15:43

Rice University. (http://news.rice.edu/2012/03/27/transparent-memory-chips-are-coming-2/)

Title: Re: Invisible Microchips?
Post by: CliffordK on 03/04/2012 08:45:16

I have enough troubles remembering where I put my visible cell phone...  Think of how quickly an invisible one would get lost!!!

I'm trying to think of the applications.  Perhaps some kind of a Head up display (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Head-up_display), or projection technology.  Perhaps true 3D displays, but that would all mean melding the technology with LED/LCD technology.

Title: Re: Invisible Microchips?
Post by: graham.d on 03/04/2012 09:23:58

Interesting, but not enough detail to understand the mechanism. SiO2 is the usual insulator in silicon gate MOS devices, including memories. Non-volatile memory usually stores charge by the charge tunneling through a thin oxide on to an insulated polysilicon gate. Too much voltage usually causes an oxide to breakdown which usually results in permanent damage. The damage does result in a conductive path through the oxide but this often is because some metal (from the interconnect and contact region) has been carried through or because the SiO2 has got very hot and melted. I am guessing that there must be some limit to the energy being imparted that is sufficient to strip the oxygen atoms but not enough to damage the structure. It is very odd that this has never been discovered before though, so the must be a lot more to it than has been revealed here.