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Researchers serve chicken with chips 
Tuesday, July 30 2002
by Ciaran Buckley


Scientists in Delaware are using a chicken feather-base composite to reduce the
weight and increase the performance of computers. 





According to research carried out at the Affordable Composites from Renewable
Sources (ACRES) program at the University of Delaware, chicken feathers make
great conductors when pressed into circuit boards for computer chips. 



In early tests, electrical signals moved twice as quickly through the feather
chip as through a conventional silicon chip, researchers said. "It was not
exactly a feather-brained idea," Richard Wool, director of the University's
ACRES program in Newark, Delaware said in an interview with HREF="http://www.techtv.com/news/computing/story/0,24195,3393143,00.html">TechTV.com.
"They'll be about 50 percent lighter and about 50 percent faster."



To make the chips, the feather fibres are stripped from the quills, pressed
together into mats and mixed with a special type of soybean oil. Next, the
chicken feather composite is pressed into boards, and cut down into small boards
for circuits. "The feathers themselves are quite strong," Wool claimed in the
TechTV report. "They're also hollow and filled with air, one of the best
conductors of electrons. It's the air that we are running on, thin air," Wool
said. 



Researchers said that with chicken feathers in plentiful supply, the circuit
boards would be cheap to produce. One 12-square-inch panel contains almost a
half-pound of feather fibres. Wool said that poultry companies are already lining
up to be suppliers, but that he could not estimate what the circuit boards will
ultimately cost. 



The scientists still have more research to do to make sure the feather circuit
boards will meet computer industry performance standards. But with the right
manufacturing partners, Wool says, the boards could be commercialised within two
years.



Scientists at the ACRES lab have experimented with many natural materials for
making composites, from soybeans to flax. Composites are alternatives to the
usual fabrication materials such as wood, steel and aluminium. Other inventions
include a chair that was manufactured from flax fibre and polymerised soybean
oil.