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CNFET Rivals Silicon Performance

Posted by Hemos on from the moving-ahead dept.

Baldrson writes "Applied Physics Letters is carrying a paper on a CNFET (carbon nanotube field-effect transistors) advance that now rivals silicon performance for both n and p type devices. There is also a New York Times article in which it is reported that "it would be two to three more years before I.B.M. was ready to work on prototypes of future nanotube chips and as many as 10 years before they would be commercially available". This is may be what's at the end of the road for CMOS."

9 of 78 comments (clear)

  1. Come on... by rich22 · · Score: 3, Funny

    When did Yahoo start posting these things before slashdot?

    Yahoo - news for nerds, who have a bedtime.

  2. That was a fast repeat... by peter_gzowski · · Score: 5, Informative

    Come on! The story this repeats is still on the front page! Strangely it's under a different topic...

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  3. hmm by asv108 · · Score: 3, Funny
    I read about this somewhere else

    1. Re:hmm by bob_jordan · · Score: 3, Funny

      Slashdot follows Moores law.

      The story repeat rate doubles every 18 months.

      Bob.

  4. Re:Exciting times by inkfox · · Score: 3, Informative
    This story also seems like the perfect place to clarify Moore's Law. Please forgive the long post, but I'd love to see this properly understood...
    From Jargon File (4.3.0, 30 APR 2001) [jargon]:

    Moore's Law /morz law/ prov. The observation that the logic density of silicon integrated circuits has closely followed the curve (bits per square inch) = 2^(t - 1962) where t is time in years; that is, the amount of information storable on a given amount of silicon has roughly doubled every year since the technology was invented. This relation, first uttered in 1964 by semiconductor engineer Gordon Moore (who co-founded Intel four years later) held until the late 1970s, at which point the doubling period slowed to 18 months. The doubling period remained at that value through time of writing (late 1999). Moore's Law is apparently self-fulfilling. The implication is that somebody, somewhere is going to be able to build a better chip than you if you rest on your laurels, so you'd better start pushing hard on the problem.

    See also {Parkinson's Law of Data} and {Gates's Law}.

    Note that Moore's law deals with density, not performance. Note, however, that Moore did later comment that if his prediction (Moore's Law) continued to be true, computing power would rise exponentially over time, but this was a seperate observation, not a part of the original prediction.

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  5. Single wall carbon nanotube practical issues. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.

  6. CN-FET Rivals Silicon Performance? by jdbo · · Score: 5, Funny

    In that case, the Boba-Fett process must totally kick CMOS's ass!

    ...I'd say this poses a danger to IBM, except that they already have experience with surviving an "Attack of the Clones"...

  7. Computers and Geography by watashiwananashidesu · · Score: 3, Funny

    So... ten years from now, is it going to be "Carbon Valley?"

    That just doesn' thave the same ring to it ya know?

  8. Re:The end of the road for CMOS? by jmv · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The end of the road for CMOS?

    From what I understand, it's not really the end of CMOS. Their transistor seems to be MOSFET (Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor Field Effect Transistor) on carbon nanotubes instead of silicon. That would mean you could still do CMOS (Complementary MOS) with it (maybe called CN-CMOS).

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