Researchers develop computer processor made from chicken feathers

The Nando Times ^ | July 26, 2002 | Associated Press

[JameRetief]

Technology: Researchers develop computer processor made from chicken feathers

Copyright © 2002 AP Online

NEWARK, Del. (July 24, 2002 3:52 p.m. EDT) - Everyone's familiar with the computer mouse. But the computer chicken? Researchers in the University of Delaware's ACRES program - Affordable Composites from Renewable Sources - have developed a computer processor made from chicken feathers.

The head of the program, chemical engineering professor Richard Wool, said researchers looked to chicken feathers because they have shafts that are hollow but strong, and made mostly of air, a great conductor of electricity.

The chicken-feather chip is made from soybean resin and feathers crafted into a composite material that looks and feels like silicon.

In early tests, electrical signals moved twice as quickly through the feather chip as through a conventional silicon chip, researchers said.

"The first time, Dr. Wool's response was, 'Recheck,'" said Chang Kook Hong, 34, the postdoctoral research associate who headed the research. "I repeated the test three times with the same results. Then he said, 'You have a hit here.'"

Problems still remain, including the natural bumps and irregularities that come from using an organic base, said Dr. Dennis Prather, an associate professor of electrical and computer engineering.

"The microchip industry depends on materials that are ultrasmooth and ultraflat," he said. "This was anything but that."

[nevergore]

When running Microsoft, does it reboot or lay and egg????
neverGore

[camle]

yeah. right.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

Feather merchants ?

[camle]

must be. everybody knows you can make superior chips using cheese on moose antlers.

[ffrancone]

When running Microsoft, does it reboot or lay and egg????

No. But when Cluckdows 95 crashes, it gives you the message "The Cows and Horses (not us chickens, no sir, not us chickens) have caused an unidentified memory error."

[glock rocks]

-

[FreeInWV]

It should make it alot easier to overcluck your processor.

[AdA$tra]

...overcluck your processor.

Now THAT's funny!

[Maceman]

There's a shortage of silicon?

[putupon]

Research financed by a grant from the govt. back when the Clinton-Ron Brown-Tyson mafia was still in charge.

[michigander]

Fortunately I keep my feathers numbered for just such an emergency.

[robertpaulsen]

If the chicken refuses to boot, do you choke it?

[Telit Likitis]

There goes the market for horsefeathers!

[Consort]

Why did the processor cross the road?

[PeaceBeWithYou]

Here's their logo.

[Jaxter]

Dude, you're gettin' a Rhode Island Red.

[Sally II]

Instead of a standard computer crash, in the next ten years we could be complaining: "My computer just decomposed."

[nightdriver]

"In early tests, electrical signals moved twice as quickly through the feather chip as through a conventional silicon chip, researchers said."

I doubt this. More technical data needed. Are they talking gate speed? Propagation speed? What?

Electricity moves the same speed through any conductor, so we need a clarification otherwise it's just the same as HORSEFEATHERS!!

[gunshy]

They didn't specify what the CPU cluck speed is.