Its certainly an interesting technology, but its not practical.
I'm seeing documents suggesting that this thing is NMOS-logic, roughly equivalent to 1970s era technology. From a process perspective: the 1970s (and older) computers had high static current.
Vacuum tubes, NMOS, BJTs (aka TTL logic) all had roughly the same architecture. The on/off switches only worked at a certain voltage/current, in particular... a current that was greater than 0. So you'd have to be sinking current from 5V to 0V all the time. (Aka: BJT "Active mode". That is: BJTs / TTL circuits cannot operate at 0-amps, there always had to be at least a little bit of current flowing through them)
In the 1980s, CMOS finally became feasible, which was a "complementary-MOS" (a combination of p-mos + n-mos transistors that were equal and opposite). Emphasis on the "equal" part, it was necessary to figure out how to make pmos and nmos exactly equal to each other to make a CMOS circuit.
Once you did CMOS, there was _ZERO_ static current. In practice, there is still a bit (aka: leakage current), but this is how you get 1-billion transistors to only use 1W of power (each transistor is leaking less than a nanowatt each).
An NMOS style chip will never be fast or efficient: it will draw too much power before it ever scales up. I'm sure these guys are working on making a CMOS technology on their plastic design but... computer chips don't seem to be a usable application of this technology.
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There are lots of analog circuits (maybe an OpAmp??) that could be made from nmos only. But until they unlock the secrets of CMOS... the realm of practical computers (1980s style or later) is likely outside the scope of this process.
Its a lesser known art: opamps, PID controllers, controller theory... its quite possible to build "smarts" out of analog circuitry alone. But that's what I'm thinking of when I see these articles that PlasticARM / Plastic chips can do.
I'm seeing documents suggesting that this thing is NMOS-logic, roughly equivalent to 1970s era technology. From a process perspective: the 1970s (and older) computers had high static current.
Vacuum tubes, NMOS, BJTs (aka TTL logic) all had roughly the same architecture. The on/off switches only worked at a certain voltage/current, in particular... a current that was greater than 0. So you'd have to be sinking current from 5V to 0V all the time. (Aka: BJT "Active mode". That is: BJTs / TTL circuits cannot operate at 0-amps, there always had to be at least a little bit of current flowing through them)
In the 1980s, CMOS finally became feasible, which was a "complementary-MOS" (a combination of p-mos + n-mos transistors that were equal and opposite). Emphasis on the "equal" part, it was necessary to figure out how to make pmos and nmos exactly equal to each other to make a CMOS circuit.
Once you did CMOS, there was _ZERO_ static current. In practice, there is still a bit (aka: leakage current), but this is how you get 1-billion transistors to only use 1W of power (each transistor is leaking less than a nanowatt each).
An NMOS style chip will never be fast or efficient: it will draw too much power before it ever scales up. I'm sure these guys are working on making a CMOS technology on their plastic design but... computer chips don't seem to be a usable application of this technology.
---------
There are lots of analog circuits (maybe an OpAmp??) that could be made from nmos only. But until they unlock the secrets of CMOS... the realm of practical computers (1980s style or later) is likely outside the scope of this process.
Its a lesser known art: opamps, PID controllers, controller theory... its quite possible to build "smarts" out of analog circuitry alone. But that's what I'm thinking of when I see these articles that PlasticARM / Plastic chips can do.