According to an article in the Washington Post, a chemical engineer from the University of Delaware filed a patent in late June that described a new generation of microchips. The patent proposes to replace silicon – which has long served as the basis for microchips – with another material: chicken feathers.
Richard Wool and his colleagues at the university’s Affordable Composites from Renewable Sources project have been developing uses for plant fibers, oils, and resins. The researcher is known for his persistence in taking an existing product and trying to find a waste product that could be used to fabricate it. Such was born the chicken feather microchip.
A microchip is basically a wafer of silicon inscribed with a dense maze of transistors. For the chip to do its magic, electric signals have to travel across these transistors. These signals travel faster in the presence of some materials than others. Air, for instance, allows the fastest movement of all. When traveling near solids, however, the movement tends to kick up opposing positive charges. Though these signals move more slowly in the presence of silicon than they do in air, silicon offers less resistance than many other materials, hence its use in microchips.
But engineers are always looking for ways to turbocharge their chips. One possible alternative for increasing a chip’s speed is finding a quicker material than silicon. So Wool turned to chicken feathers.
He knew that chicken feathers contain lots of air. Wool’s team took the feathers and plant oils and molded them into a composite material that approximates the shape and feel of silicon. When the researchers tested it for speed, they found that the composite allowed movement at about twice the rate of silicon. Wool’s results are preliminary.
August 2002 Render