IBM Breakthrough Finds Replacement For Silicon

Author Gordon Kelly
Published 8th Feb 2010
IBM Breakthrough Finds Replacement For Silicon
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Here's something a bit more techie to wrap your brains around on a Monday morning: IBM has announced a significant breakthrough which may have just found the long term successor to silicon in chip technology...

Called 'graphene', it is - and I quote IBM here: "a single atom-thick layer of carbon atoms bonded in a hexagonal honeycomb-like arrangement. This two-dimensional form of carbon has unique electrical, optical, mechanical and thermal properties and its technological applications are being explored intensely."

Explored successfully too by the sound of things since IBM has confirmed tests with graphene have achieved the highest cut-off frequency ever recorded: 100 billion cycles per second, or 100GHz. To put this into some context, the highest cut-off frequency ever recorded for silicon is 40GHz. Furthermore, the breakthrough was achieved using standard silicon fabrication techniques so one material can simply be substituted for the other.


"A key advantage of graphene lies in the very high speeds in which electrons propagate, which is essential for achieving high-speed, high-performance next generation transistors," said Dr. T.C. Chen, VP of Science and Technology at IBM. "The breakthrough we are announcing demonstrates clearly that graphene can be utilized to produce high performance devices and integrated circuits."

And the good news doesn't end there. IBM claims not only was the graphene used obtained for natural resources (meaning no specific strain of graphene is required), but also that the tests were in no way stretching the limits of the material "leaving plenty of space for further optimization of its performance".

Naturally enough no time frame was put on the use of graphene in commercial products, but it is rather good to know that as we push the properties of silicon ever closer to breaking point we already look to have an heir apparent waiting in the wings. Hopefully this should delay the grey goo apocalypse a little longer...

Links:
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Image courtesy of newscom

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comment iain coghill said on 8th February 2010

Graphine is naturally produced whenever you write with a pencil - tiny amounts of the graphite from the lead will slough off as graphine. You can also produce it by sticking sellot... more

comment MSIC said on 8th February 2010

This really is awesome news, thanks for reporting it.
I feel that there could be some sort of solution to global warming in this (ie an ability to extract excess carbon diox... more

comment Chocoa said on 8th February 2010

Dontcha' jus love the marketing use of the term "natural"... As far as I can remember all things are *natural* apart form a few man made isotopes.

On topic... more

comment Helmore said on 8th February 2010

Anyone dare to guess when we'll see this kind of technology in commercial products? My guess would be at around 10 years from now. But to be honest, I have no idea how fast they'll... more

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