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The Diamond Age
bigner writes "The new diamond age is here and will revolutionize the computer industry. Diamonds show amazing potential as a superior semiconductor."
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Apple invented the word 'super,' and also invented incredibly over priced computers. You PC losers are just jealous.
Now it will be back in the day when computers cost like $4000. Oh yea, no more stupid users. If someone really wants a computer they're going to have to take the time to learn to use it or it will end up being a waste of 4 grand instead of $600. I predict a new golden age!!!
Help I'm a rock.
Bah, I'm more concered about the reverse being true. You know, like when semiconductors will show amazing potential as a superior diamond. Because it's a hell of a lot cheaper to give my girlfriend a chip than a diamond ring. And just because you're not using diamonds doesn't mean you can't differentiate on the value. The slick executive types will propose with dual Athlons, while the poor struggling college student will have to resort to a 6502 or something.
There is no sig, there is only Zuul.
I thought about getting Mrs. Claus one of these fake diamonds as an engagement ring stone, but then I thought about what I was saying by doing such a thing. Is my love for her just a facsimile of true love? Though chemically and physically the manufactured diamond is identical to a mined diamond, there is the lingering feeling that it is somewhat untrue to the spirit of diamonds. It is a perfect, fake diamond.
I didn't want to have that sort of guilt hanging over my head, so I didn't go with the cheaper diamond.
I decided to buy her a cheapy cubic zirconium instead.
I can tell my wife that she should let me a new 3 carat Radeon 18000 Pro for our anniversary? I mean, it has diamonds, after all.
I'm so pleased. Really really pleased. Aside from furthuring the hopes and dreams of everyone's favorite science fiction writer, this has a real potential for curbing South African violence. Call me liberatarian, but much like the pending legalization of all controlled substances (I can dream can't I?), a potential for cheap diamonds could destroy any black market demand for our little carbon friends.
I've been waiting for this for years. I want to get my girlfriend a diamond ring (even if the concept of 'traditionalism' was manufactured, a diamond ring sends a cultural message that I wish to buy into), but I refuse to buy from anything that might have been touched by DeBeers. Now I can get a high-quality diamond, and be certain that no 14 year old Sierra Leone girls had their hands cut off to get it to me.
-Hentai [in vita non pacem est]
In Response to the famous /. proposal.
Kathleen, I bet you are kicking yourself for giving in so soon now!
(with apologizes to CmdrTaco)
When modding "Informative", please make sure it both has a source and IS actually informative.
Hopefully this will break the diamond cartel permenantly. I can't wait for diamonds to become like salt. Hard to believe the romans actually paid soldiers with salt. Now everyone will have diamonds cheaply, and western culture can wonder about all that brainwashing they've endured thinking that investing in a diamond ring was worth it.
Read the article.
This company makes the material. It's similar to the guys who make silicon wafers now. They won't design chips, they will just sell carbon to both Intel and Motorola (or whoever is around at the time).
They're not really rare. As the article states, Debeers has a stockpile and controls the supply ruthlessly with tactics that makes Microsoft look like reasonable.
They pretty much ignored an antitrust judgement, have been held responsible for untold exploitation of black African minors, and have been accused of much worse. In the article, one of the interviewees recalls and indirect death threat and treats the journalist with suspicion, fearful that he is an agent of Debeers.
Yes, ladies, we know they look pretty. They may also be more responsible for more terrorism than drugs, certainly more than Bush/Ascroft would like you to beleive.
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
Karma: Oldschool
I read this story earlier today, and i can already tell that 90% of the above posters havent read it.
If they did they would know that these are manufactured diamonds using relativly new processes that allow for some large diamonds.
Being manufactured they are rather cheap. The jewel grade stones will be sold at about half fo what debeers is selling thier diamonds for.
The big falacy about diamonds is that they are scare. They are, in fact, in great abundance but most of the world's supply is controlled by Debeers. They trickle diamonds onto the market keeping the price artificially high.
To summarize.
1. We can now make great looking diamonds for cheap. (2 different methods of doing so)
2. They can be formed into anything from gemstones to about 4 inch wide(so far) diamond wafers.
3. There are 2 forms of doping in the process of creating the diamonds that allows for + and - parts (couldnt think of the word) that means we now have the building blocks of logic for diamond based chips.
The big point behind putting chips on diamonds is that diamonds are the best known conductors of heat. That means that the chip can be severely cranked up without melting.
The idea is to sell gemstones until they can start making semiconductor blanks. The diamonds will be comparatively cheap, since the vast majority of the cost to produce the diamonds is fixed.
As to DeBeers, I'm sure they'll come up with some marketing angle. Personally, after taking a university honors course in gemology, I learned that the way to tell the difference twixt 'real' and 'fake' gemstones was the 'real' ones were full of crap. The very most expensive of the 'reals' merely approached the purity of the 'fakes'.
Of course, it isn't true love unless you've spent thousands on the rock. The composition of the rock itself doesn't matter (except for the all-important crap to show it's 'real'), it's how much debt you're willing to incurr to show your love.
********* sig: If you don't like the law, get filthy stinking rich, and buy a better one.
-cp-
Finally, I can ask my girl friend for a diamond laced motherboard with matching cpu as an anniversary gift. Why a diamond is now truly for everyone.
-----
One is born into aristocracy, but mediocrity can only be achieved through hard work.
It is unclear, at best, whether or not diamond has any advantages for mainstream processing. Just because diamond has higher thermal conductivity doesn't mean that it can magically solve all of our problems...without knowing what kind of carrier mobilities can be acheived you can't conclude anything. It might turn out that diamonds are actually far worse than silicon for processing applications. And then there are all of the potential fabrication problems. The lack of good dopants. The lack of a stable native oxide (instead of silicon dioxide, you have carbon dioxide...). How are you going to etch 10nm features into diamond? The article talks of a lack of interest from mainstream companies like Intel. I would take this as a very bad sign for diamond processors...with the scope of Intel/IBM/AMDs research efforts, if they're not looking into something, then its probably not worth researching. Diamonds might have some very useful applications in optical devices...but don't expect to see them inside your desktop computer.
*starts singing* A kiss on the RAM might be quite unconventional, but diamonds are a geek's best friend!
Read the article. One of the cartel guys is so scared by this tech that he was white-faced and shaking by the end of his meeting with Clarke. Another diamond guy told Linares that his father's research was an excellent way to get a bullet in the head.
DeBeers is only where they are because they've had a lock on the supply, and imitations up to this point have been less than convincing. Now we have the real thing, man-made. Especially the vapor process. In fact, the vapor process produces even more perfect diamonds than Mother Nature. DeBeers *should* be scared, since the tech is now in North America and they can't do a damn thing to stop it. In fact, the whole conflict diamond problem is undoubtedly going to be a hindrance to DeBeers trying to badmouth these things. Just think of the upcoming PR:
General Clarke: "These are made by the same processes, and are real carbon diamonds. The structure is the same, it is real. It just took us a lot less time to make"
DeBeers: "But *our* diamonds come from our mines in Africa. Surely they're worth more because of that"
General Clarke: "How many children were killed because of those African diamonds?"
DeBeers: "...but, but, we're sure everyone follows the Kimberly accords..."
General Clarke: "Of course. Because bloody military juntas are so concerned with outside trade agreements, right?"
I'm not trying to troll, but when will mainstream applications (see: desktop computers, or at least universities) come around? Until we see anything, it's all theoretical, and all subject to just being vaporware.
Apollo produces its diamonds by CVD -- chemical vapor deposition. So, in a way, these new diamonds are literally vaporware.
Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
yo.
(some aluminum facts)
I read the dead-tree version of this article last week. The prediction is not just making small gems and computer chips, but huge, pure, industrial quantities soon. Despite anything that De Beers tries to do, if chemically and structurally identical diamonds can be made, natural diamonds will collapse in value. Aluminum certainly didn't retain its value.
As to the price of chips made from diamonds, market forces will determine the fair price (and drive costs inexorably downward.) The major cost of a Silicon-based chip is not the Silicon, but the processing needed to make it function. The same will soon be true of Diamond based chips. Undoubtably there will be a steep learning curve in making diamond chips, so Silicon has at least a decade of safely being number one. Gallium Arsenide is considered superior to Silicon in many ways, but has only unseated Silicon in certain high frequency, low power, telecommunication applications. Diamond-based chips will probably infiltrate niche markets first, where price of fabrication is not a major deterrent.
Letter To Iran
Screw that... screw having a motherboard laced with diamond... try a CPU that can handle multiples of the current 200 degree limit:
Five BUCKS per carat... let me repeat that. 5 dollars per carot. Damn.
You know all the effoft overclockers put into reducing heat? The complex cooling systems? The fans? The liqid nitrogen? Imagine a processor that will run at many times the current CPU upper temps and not blink. I don't give a damn if I ever where a diamond on my hand.
This is the break through that will allow Moore's law to continue to grow. Couple this with the recent things we've heard about the equivalent of Ohm's in the conservation of quantum sping, and we have the future of computing.
We may even blow Moore's law out of the water.
Diamond is the only gem that's still worth anything (thanks to De Boer's monopoly). With the advent of the internet, virtually anyone can order other gems directly from Thailand and the like. Sapphire and ruby prices have crashed as a result. You can get a 1 carat pigeonblood ruby for just $10 or so nowadays.
And that's not counting advances in synthetic gemstones. Hydrothermal processes for sapphire, ruby and emerald have made it virtually impossible to detect a good quality gem (most synthetic sapphire and ruby is still grown the old way though, which is easier to detect).
I personally have a roughly 10+ carat white sapphire heart and a top blood red ruby of about the same size, both synthetic. I paid about $10 each for them, including the .925 sterling silver pendant setting.
In context, natural gems like these, a few decades back, would be worth tens of thousands of dollars.
Hardware, software, and blinking lights!
now i'll have to make sure the cpu is really a diamond before i can overclock it?
Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony.
They are listing numbers like $5/carat (1ct should be enough to make a processor chip... certainly 2 or 3 cts is).
If anything, this might actually be cheaper than silicon by the MHz, thanks to its superior semiconductor and insulating properties and higher thermal conductivity.
Hardware, software, and blinking lights!
I specifically told my husband, when I was still his fiancee, that I absolutely, positively, did NOT want a diamond as an engagement ring. I definitely knew all the facts about 'bloody diamonds' and I didn't want any part of them.
With the advent of manufactured (umm, "cultured") diamonds and their potential uses in computers, I suppose I might be interested in a little "bling bling" now. That is, if the "bling bling" is safely inside the newest, kewlest mega-badass computer. 8-)
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
Ok, and god damn. A bit of research turns of very interesting things. It is amazing to me how things like this can sit out there a fester... all the info is out on the net. This Wired article should not be a surprise. Every night I sit at my computer with a fat pipe connection and try to think of good things to type into google. This one passed me and apparently most of us by;
From the Wired article, this is (as far as I can tell) Joshua Davis sitting in Antwerp, handing three diamonds made via chemical vapor deposition.
Another name. Only mentioned once in the aricle. One of many names. I wanted to know more. A series of google searches. the best one.
Success.
The first one that really catches my interest. a research paper. A quote:
For god sacks, that is a long quote, please go read the whole thing.
If I thought it couldn't get better, the www proved me wrong.
emphasis mine. He states Jim Butler as a reference. Uh. Not only do we have the future of microprocessor technology, we have a people researching as a method to connect it to living flesh.
If you ever see a top white diamond next to a Moissanite, you'd swear the diamond was glass. The Moissanite is almost blinding.
Hardware, software, and blinking lights!
Imagine a processor that will run at many times the current CPU upper temps and not blink.
Yeah, but imagine the smell those burning dust bunnies will make.
Seriously though, if you are going to have something that hot, you'd need to completely change the entire mainboard design. The PCB would have to be made of more heat resistant materials (which would be trivial if the envirofreaks didn't effectively ban asbestos), and all the surrounding chips would have to be rated to deal with the oven-like heat of the CPU.
Not to mention, heat comes from power usage. We are already pushing 50-70 watts for current CPUs. Imagine having to buy a 2kw power supply for your computer. You'd need to plug it in to a special circuit like a stove or a dryer. Then imagine running the air conditioning in the summer overtime, to compensate for the 2kw heater that is running all the time (and waste money even in the winter, since heat pumps are far more efficient than resistive heat). The costs are not linear at all.
Anyway, my point is, there is an upper limit to heat dissipation possible in personal computers, even if the chip can stand it.
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
Go get a periodic table and a description of how Semiconductors work.
Silicon isn't really a proper metal. Like carbon, silicon is on the borderline between metals and non-metals. Silicon forms crystals, just like carbon. It's because they form crystals that they function as semi-conductors - Silicon conducts quite poorly on it's own. Only when doped does it become a conductor. When doped with the appropriate substances semi-conductors have either extra valence electrons in the crystalline structure or "holes" where there should be, which serve to carry the current. Doping diamond should work the same way - Same column of the table, same number of valence electrons, similar crystalline structures.
Why?
The same thing that is done to any economy that is no longer needed, in the past the area where I live was the buggy whip making capital of the world, boohoo, they all got put out of work when the evil car companies started making horseless carriages.
There are no karma whores, only moderation johns
Gone would be the days of chipping your Athlon core because of those damn huge thermaltake orbs!
-- I'd say your post was about 3 monkeys, 18 minutes.
Man, just imagine a diamond-bottom frying pan! Perfectly non-stick, and the most even heating possible.
I want it. Now.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
PBS had a special on this back in 2000. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/diamond/
It looks like the big breakthrough is the CVD technique. The old Russian design had the problem of letting in too much nitrogen and creating only yellow diamonds. They have improved the technique but it is still harder to make clear diamonds. I read that they were going after the colored market since colored natural diamonds are more expensive. Plus it must be easier to add color with new elements than remove all the yellow. (They can add different elements to get different colors.) Expect the market in colored diamonds (especially yellow) to get cheap. (Kobe should have waited...) Of course the real volume is in clear diamonds. Hopefully the CVD technique can make cheap clear diamonds. I know they said $5 a carat, but I wouldn't trust Wired.
Chris Mesterharm
Interesting article, but it's missing some of the point. There are two issues here: fabricating substitute "gem" diamonds for jewelry, or fabricating diamond for the semiconductor industry..., or diamond coatings for wear resistance, biocompatible implants, etc. These are an entirely different beast.
CVD diamond, even in with the best of reactors, is limited by growth rates. Working with thin films is, at the moment, the only way to go. You can also only get single crystal diamond by growing on a previously obtained single crystal diamond- as they mention in the article. This is seriously limiting, and they don't mention the growth rates in the article. 5$ a carat is such a BS guess it's not even funny.
CVD diamond grown primarly on Si wafers, and on some specially coated Si wafers, is the way diamond (which is polycrystalline, with different grain sizes giving very different diamond properties) is going to be used in the near to far future. Our group just got a RD 100 award (not that I give that much creedence to those, but it's recognition) for coating 4" wafers with diamond, and we're going up to 8" next year.
The biggest problem is with the electronic properties of the diamond. Sure, it's a great thermal conductor. But... ahem.. it also needs to be a great electical conductor- and have decent mobilities- to be used in actual electronic devices. You can dope diamond with boron to make it p-type, but the conductivity isn't all that high, and the mobility even less, in polycrystalline diamond due to defects and grain boundaries, etc. We've made n-type nanocrystalline diamond with nitrogen, which shouldn't work, but does, and we're still trying to figure out the conduction mechanism.
Thin film diamond is really going to shine for a few particular uses- MEMS (it has extremely low friction/stiction/wear), bio-devices, chemically resistant devices, etc. In all of these cases, even conductive MEMS driven by diamond electronics, borderline and not great electronic properties are fine. (Think Si TFT's for your comptuer display- it's not single crystal Si, obviously, but still has a great potental for other uses.)
There is no way to dope single crystal n-type. People are trying very hard to do this. Some people think they have gotten phosphorous to work slightly, but the growth is very difficult, and the work hard to reproduce. (our doping probably occurs in the grain boundaries, and we think we have actual grain boundary conduction vs. traditional doping processes.) That is a far bigger barrier than just growing BIG DIAMONDS. This article is just some PR spin press release that doesn't really say anything. (As I get more jaded, I see that that is all they really ever are). Just because you can't make Intel processors out of diamond doesn't mean you can't utilize diamond for a large number of exciting applications.
Remember: bigger is not better. Although I personally do like the idea of freaking out DeBeers.
Pull me a diamond boule, and I"ll be impressed.
-j, postdoc at your favorite national lab.
Me too. After a while though I forget what I'm reading about.
The industry is geared to Si because it is cheap, can be easily made into big oriented doped single crystal ingots, the ingots can be easily converted into single crystal wafers that can easily be made into chips.
I do not think the same is true for diamond. Where a silicon ingot can be pulled with a foot diameter and a couple feet in length, the diamond grows from a seed in a prism shape, and probably with a fixed orientation. This means the orientation must be set at the time of cutting, which impacts the actual size of wafer produced. To be compatible with current machines, the wafers will have to be rounded, which is an additional cost and incurs additional losses.
The size is also an issue. The currently exploited economies of scale dictate that the bigger the wafer the better. For instance, a wafer with a diameter of 1 foot can conceivably create twice as much product as an 8 inch wafer. This means that each step in a manufacturing process can often create twice as much product in the same time with the same number of machines. This is a really big deal. To put this in perspective, it could conceivable require over 200 machines using a 10mm wafer to match the production of a single machine using a 8 inch wafer. Of course this is massively oversimplified, but the point is valid.
Really the material costs are not all that significant. The manufacturing costs are what eat all the money. The are some application where the added manufacturing costs are not going to be an issue, but I do not see mass produced electronics. If they can get to 4 inches in 5 years, and 8 inches in 10 years, we should start seeing some diamond electronics. Of course, this is also going to be much harder than they are letting on.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
My question here is, that you have this chip that will now run at 2k instead of 200 degrees but what the hell are you going to do with the heat? For home users are we going to start seeing dryer vents with firewall protection through the walls to the outside of the house?
I'm running 2 AMD XP 2000+ processors in a 12x12 room and shut the doors and it can be 100 degrees in there quickly. I'm sure it creates enough heat to raise my power bill some also but I have yet come up with a solution. I have planned on venting them out the Window but I have to handle the bug and security problem there at the same time.
It's actually quite a good question.
I can tell you specifically why diamond is not organic with a quick definition that organic chemistry is the study of compounds containing carbon. Diamond is a giant molecule of elemental carbon, so it is firmly inorganic.
Although that definition isn't perfect, some compounds such as carbon dioxide are also considered inorganic.
Some people say that organic chemistry requires a molecule to possess carbon-hydrogen bonds - but that is wrong as well. Tetrachloromethane (CCl4) - dry cleaning fluid - is firmly organic but with no hygrogen atoms to be found in the molecule.
Which leads me to conclude that organic chemistry is the study of carbon compounds - except carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide and carbides.
Doubtless there are further exceptions.
Best wishes,
Mike.