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Plastic may spell the end of the silicon microchip
By Peter Marsh

Published: January 2 2007
Plastic Logic has attracted $100m (£51m) of investment that will fund a plant to make plastic semiconductors – the first of its kind in the world. The factory should be in operation in Dresden, Germany, by the end of 2008 and employ 140 people.
However, news that a plant is to be built will create a stir far beyond Cambridge. Morry Marshall, vice-president for strategic technologies at Semico, a Phoenix-based semiconductor research group, says plastic semiconductors have "tremendous potential" and add up to a "breakthrough that is waiting to happen".

The initial products from the factory will be pieces of plastic about A4 size. The basic plastic substrate will be polyethylene terephthalate, a form of plastic used to make drinks bottles.

By 2009 the Dresden plant should be producing 2.2m units of A4-size semiconductor sheets a year. They will initially be used as flexible "control circuitry" for large displays the size of a piece of paper that can hold large amounts of information – equivalent to thousands of books.