Smart weave revolution: monolithic fiber-integrated circuits for next-generation intelligence

Fiber materials—from natural silk to optical fibers—have historically propelled civilizational advancement. Capitalizing on these foundations, fiber electronics exploit inherent flexibility, weavability, and biocompatibility to enable wearable, distributed, and implantable applications. The field has progressed from single-function devices toward multifunctional architectures that integrate light emission, display, memory, and biosensing. A recent study published in Nature by Z. Wang et al. reported a fiber-integrated circuit employing an innovative multilayer helical stacking architecture. As the core building component of information-processing circuits, transistors are densely incorporated into this fiber-integrated circuit to enable robust signal-processing functionality. The device attains an unprecedented integration density of 100,000 transistors per centimeter—meeting industrial standards for very-large-scale integration—with constituent transistors exhibiting an on–off switching ratio at 10⁷, a leakage current of ~10⁻¹⁰ A, and a mobility of 1.13 cm² V⁻¹ s⁻¹. This breakthrough establishes a critical hardware foundation for fully fiber-based intelligent systems, marking a significant transition from discrete fiber devices to integrated functional platforms.