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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.)"
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.