Silicon chips stretch into shape
Normally fragile and brittle silicon chips have been made to bend and fold, paving the way for a new generation of flexible electronic devices.
The stretchy circuits could be used to build advanced brain implants, health monitors or smart clothing.
The complex devices consist of concertina-like folds of ultra-thin silicon bonded to sheets of rubber.
Writing in the journal Science, the US researchers say the chip's performance is similar to conventional electronics.
"Silicon microelectronics has been a spectacularly successful technology that has touched virtually every part of our lives," said Professor John Rogers of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, one of the authors of the paper.
But, he said, the rigid and fragile nature of silicon made it very unattractive for many applications, such as biomedical implants.
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