Cambridge spin-off seeks plastic chips

Plastic Logic, a spin-off of Cambridge University, aims to commercialize plastic chip making. Plastic chips are not expected to compete directly with silicon, running at only hundreds of kilohertz, but the cost of plastic chips could be only a few cents apiece. The flexible devices could be printed on plastic film and attached to virtually anything. Other potential uses include active-matrix drives for mobile phone and larger displays. The plastic chip industry is expected to be worth $10 billion a year by 2004, about one percent the size of the silicon business. IBM, Intel, Hitachi, Lucent, Mitsubishi, Phillips and Xerox are all researching plastic chip technologies.

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