The end result could be built into clothes, small monitoring devices and even implanted into human bodies.
"We have developed a simple approach to high performance, stretchable and foldable integrated circuits," said the team from the University of Illinois.
"The systems integrate inorganic electronic materials, including aligned arrays of nano-ribbons of single crystalline silicon, with ultra-thin plastic and 'elastomeric' substrates."
The designs combine multilayer neutral mechanical plane layouts and "wavy" structural configurations in silicon complementary logic gates, ring oscillators and differential amplifiers.
Although silicon is a highly brittle substance the folds in the design, and the flexible substrate, make it easy to bend the chip to fit around uneven surfaces like medical probes or bone structures.