IBM Nanotechnology Transistor Faster than Silicon

Dustin Destree writes: "This article on MSNBC talks about how IBM has developed a new transistor based on nanotube technology that at its first stages outperforms even the fastest silicon transistor. Interesting read that gives ideas about where the computer industry is heading in the next few years."

Comments

Single wall carbon nanotube practical issues.

[caesar-auf-nihil]

Since the IBM experiments (and others done elsewhere) almost always use single wall carbon nanotubes, there are a few issues of practical nature I wonder about with this technology.

One is that single wall nanotubes are oxygen sensitive. Specifically, contact with O2 will cause single site defects in the nanotube structure, thus causing the whole nanotube to lose its electronic properties. It makes me wonder about how they will package these "molecular transistors" such that O2 can't get to it, but the encapsulation of the nanotube doesn't cause it to short out.

Another is that when these things heat up, they do ignite. As we've seen with the light-based ignition shown in Science and here on slashdot, these materials do burn. The above mentioned oxygen reaction sometimes causes the semi-conducting nanotubes to become insulators, thus they heat up, ignite, and disintegrate. So I'm wondering if frying one's nanotube-based chip would be more than just a figurative term if this happened.

Finally, there is the fabrication issue. I know that in the near future, one can make kilotons of nanotubes, and probably even kilograms of single wall nanotubes today (maybe 2kg a year, but you don't need that much if you only need 1 nanotube), but how are you going to fabricate them into architechures onto chips with existing chip fabrication technology?

Maybe IBM has all this worked out. I do have to remember that what they've published today is what they already have covered in patents and what they've been working on already for several months to one year. They don't publish unless they've got more going on AND if they already have the technology protected.