Silicon chips are usually relatively thick, they are not flexible and certainly not stretchable. For most applications this is not a problem, however, if we want to use these chips for (implantable) biomedical applications, it is difficult to adapt them to the intricate shapes of the human body. Especially for these applications flexible and even stretchable chips are very interesting.
In a normal processed silicon wafer, usually everything of interest is confined in the top layer which is very often not thicker than one or two micron. The remainder of the silicon substrates just serves to keep this thin layer together during processing of the circuit. In a research project we are developing technologies to transfer this very thin circuit layer to thin and highly flexible carriers so that the circuits can be bent to radii less than half a millimeter.
The next logical step after flexible is stretchable. Stretchable chips can be shaped in three dimensions so that they can comply with spherical surfaces. Focus on Investigating methods to make chips flexible.
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