The new thread-shaped chips

They are microcomputers wound into a thread.

Historically, microchips were built under an almost unquestionable rule, they must be rigid planes and made on silicon wafers, now, researchers from Fundan University in Shanghai decided to break that logic, instead of trying to adapt traditional chips to tissues, they did something more radical, they transformed the tissue itself into a computational system.

The result is ultra-fine fibers, as fine as a human hair, capable of incorporating complete electronic circuits in their structure. We are not just talking about sensors or conductive threads, we are talking about microcomputers wound in the form of a thread, led by Pwiisan of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

The result is surprising

The team spent more than a decade developing what they call FICs, fiber integrated circuits. The process begins with an extendable polymer sheet winged until it reaches a roughness of less than 1 nanometer. On that flexible base, traditional lithography techniques are applied to build transistors, receivers, capacitors and diodes, exactly as in a conventional chip.

Then, that flat chip is rolled like a sushi roll, forming a compact spiral that becomes a sealed fiber, the result is surprising. Each centimeter of fiber can contain about 100,000 transistors, a single millimeter already includes tens of thousands and a full meter can reach millions, approaching the scale of traditional CPUs.

But perhaps the most impressive fact is not the computational power, it is the resistance, they withstood up to 10,000 bending and abrasion cycles. They stretched up to 30%, were twisted up to 180º per cm, withstood more than 100 machine washes, withstood temperatures up to 100º and survived being run over by a 15-ton truck.

All this while maintaining full functionality, unlike previous generations of fiber electronics that focused only on energy conduction or simple sensors, this new technology integrates power, sensing, processing, and even display in a single filament, processes digital and analog signals, executes basic image recognition with architecture inspired by neural networks.

Operating as a complete but flexible computing system, this completely changes the game for wearable technologies, clothing that processes data locally, surgical gloves capable of transmitting tactile sensation in remote surgeries, brain-computer interfaces compatible with soft tissues of the human body, virtual reality devices that do not need external rigid modules.

According to the team, this is the key to the next generation of electronics integrated into the human body, because the body is not made of silicon, it is made of soft tissue, and now for the first time computing begins to speak that same physical language.

When processing, sensors and intelligence become part of the fabric we wear, the border between technology and biology begins to become increasingly tenuous. If computing can already be sewn into clothes and folded like a hair, the next step is inevitable, bringing the mind even closer.