Reports of the death of silicon electronics may well have been exaggerated. A technique that allows the deposition of silicon films from solution could harbinger the era of the inkjet-printed circuit. On page 783 of this issue, Shimoda et al. set forth a radical way of incorporating silicon into that most basic of electronic components, the transistor. Their technique uses a novel liquid precursor of solid silicon to allow the 'printing' of semiconductor films via familiar inkjet technology. It could thus permit unprecedented control over the size and placement of semiconducting silicon in future generations of high-performance electronic equipment.
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