Chicken-Feather Chips

gtaylor writes "The Washington Post reports that University of Delaware chemical engineer proposes to replace silicon with chicken feather composites -- since the feathers apparently make the electrons fly. (Unlike turkeys.)"

Comments

Very scientific article ...

[Rolo Tomasi]

The chicken-feather microchip is not as weird as it sounds. A microchip is basically a wafer of silicon inscribed with a dense maze of transistors. For the chip to do its computational magic, electric signals have to travel across these transistors.

These signals travel faster in the presence of some materials than others. Air, for instance, allows the fastest movement of all, because it provides essentially no resistance. When traveling near solids, however, the movement tends to kick up opposing positive charges. These charges can distract the signal from completing its appointed rounds.

So what are they saying? Air offers no electrical resistance? Last I heard, air was one of the best insulators around. Or did they perchance confuse resistance with the dielectric value?

This guy's living in a dream world

[Cutie Pi]

This article is very poorly written... lots of technical errors. As a professional in the semiconductor industry, I'm having trouble envisioning how this guy could actually replace silicon with chicken feathers.

For one thing, they seem to talking about the dielectric constant of the materials. For chips, a low dielectric constant material between the metal lines is good, because it reduces the RC time delay. That's why you might have heard all the buzz about low-K dielectrics. But these are state-of-the art nanoporous materials that are designed for good deposition, thickness control, and etchability... I just can't see how you could do the same with chicken feathers.

As for replacing the silicon itself? No way. Silicon is a unique material with semiconducting properties, meaning you can change its resistance by added small controlled amounts of dopant atoms. It can be made in large single crystal ingots with very low defect and impurity level. How in the world could you replace a single crystal with chicken feathers??? Hell, the fibers alone are 100's of times bigger than current gate widths.

Me remains a bit skeptical.

Re:This guy's living in a dream world

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd have to agree with you. After reading the article, I essentially said to myself, "Congradulations guy, you just measured the electron mobility of chicken feather compound." Any solid state device physics or materials engineer working in the semiconductor field can tell you that there are MANY (note the stress in many) more factors to designing chips that work. Hell, GaAs (gallium arsenice) has much better mobility than Silicon but isn't so widely used in any but the most high tech and high cost of circuits. Silicon has been tried and true because is has so many other desirable properties that simply make the the best material for the job. There are simply many more factors that go into this than simply measuring the electron mobility of chicken feathers.

Is this guy for real?

[Target Drone]

Maybe someone with an engineering degree could answer a couple of my questions.

Wool's team took chicken feathers and plant oils and molded them into a composite material that approximates the shape and feel of silicon.

Wouldn't "approximates the electrical characteristics of silicon" be better then just making a silicon substitute that looks and feels like silicon?

When the researchers tested it for speed, they found that the composite allowed movement at about twice the rate of silicon. Though that's still slower than the speed in air, Wool said, "I was jumping up and down."

It doesn't sound like they actually created a gate. Isn't creating something that conducts electricty a far cry from creating something that can actually be used as a gate in a circuit?

And finally. Why does it sound like this guy is wasting the tax payers money?

Re:What?

[Anonymous Coward]

No.. spatch monkey has a point... just because electrons move faster doesn't mean everything... the main reason silicon is used (as well GaAs and others) is because of the SEMI conductive properties - not just conductive properties. There has to be a way to switch between a high impedence state and a low impedence state. Current transistors do this with "doping" the material with p and n type substances. This article really doesn't mean much unless they describe how ANYTHING would get switched... how would they "dope" a chicken feather???

Man electricuted in a batch full of AIR

[oliverthered]

What a load of blox
" These signals travel faster in the presence of some materials than others. Air, for instance, allows the fastest movement of all, because it provides essentially no resistance. When traveling near solids, however, the movement tends to kick up opposing positive charges. These charges can distract the signal from completing its appointed rounds.

Though these signals move more slowly in the presence of silicon than they do in air, silicon offers less resistance than many other materials do. That's why it has been used in microchips for so long. But engineers are always looking for ways to turbocharge their chips. Historically, they have been able to do this by inscribing more transistors into ever-tinier spaces. But some worry that a physical limit may be approaching. "

SFAIK, this is shit. Silicon is good because it produces the second hightest number of compounds (carbon comes tops) and it's metalic, SFA to do with risistance. copper/gold and diamond have less resistance?

Mr wool and his wooly ideas!
Next he'll inject sheep so that they shead there flease.