Green materials for neurOMorphic signal processing by organic synaptic transistors

Introduction

Electronics today cause major environmental impacts through manufacture, use, and disposal, as well as growing concerns about Europe's economic and technological dependence on other regions of the world.

Project Objective

The overall objective of GreenOMorph is the radical reduction of the environmental impact of electronics manufacture, use, and end-of-life, as well as a total avoidance of critical raw materials in manufactured devices.

Innovative Approaches

We attack this goal on the one hand by choosing neuromorphic instead of common Von Neumann computing, reducing the energy consumed during use by several orders of magnitude. On the other hand, we completely rely on organic electronics with innovative green materials and additive low-temperature manufacturing by:

• Blade coating
• Screen-printing
• Inkjet printing

These methods are applied in all parts of an organic artificial sensory neuron for recognition of tactile pressure patterns.

Project Components

The parts of the neuron include:

1. Organic tactile sensor
2. Organic signal conditioning circuits
3. Organic artificial synapses
4. The neuron itself

These components are validated outcomes of the project and contribute to the project portfolio of Responsible Electronics already during their development.

Performance and Environmental Impact

The outcomes of the project will help to replace a performance-at-any-cost attitude, while staying fully aware that developing non-performing devices not accepted by users would have a great environmental impact as well. Therefore, performance targets and market analysis are equally important as the low environmental impact targets and social life cycle assessment.

Future Reference

By showing that it is possible to fulfill a given purpose at an environmental footprint orders of magnitude smaller than today, and at the same time reduce dependence on other regions of the world, our low-environmental-footprint-first approach will serve as a reference in the future. This will benefit:

• Scientific communities
• Technology developers and manufacturers
• End users