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."

Comments

Real vs. Fake

[Dancin_Santa]

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.

Give Peace a Chance

[zachster]

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.

Kathleen Fent Read This Article

[ticklemeozmo]

In Response to the famous /. proposal.
Kathleen, I bet you are kicking yourself for giving in so soon now!

(with apologizes to CmdrTaco)

Good news

[archen]

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.

Don't Buy Diamonds

[Bonker]

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.

Re:Don't Buy Diamonds

[Jack William Bell]

Heh. I bought my fiance, now wife, a moissanite ring partly because of cost and partly because I really didn't want anything to do with giving money to DeBeers. Anita was fine with it, partly because moissanite has a science fiction connection.

No they're not

[Koushiro]

Actually, the claim that "diamonds are forever" was merely an advertising campaign, albeit a successful one. De Beers started this idea of diamonds being 'forever' as an attempt to sell more diamonds in engagement rings.

De Beers needed a slogan for diamonds that expressed both the theme of romance and legitimacy. An N. W. Ayer copywriter came up with the caption "A Diamond Is Forever," which was scrawled on the bottom of a picture of two young lovers on a honeymoon. Even though diamonds can in fact be shattered, chipped, discolored, or incinerated to ash, the concept of eternity perfectly captured the magical qualities that the advertising agency wanted to attribute to diamonds. Within a year, "A Diamond Is Forever" became the official motto of De Beers.

Read!

[dave1g]

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.

I knew this was coming

[core plexus]

As a geologist working for a company that explores mostly for metals, I recently worked on a diamond project here in Alaska. I've known for a long time that the whole diamond scam (see DeBeers) would come crashing down eventually, and have been warning that we (the company) should not be getting too excited about diamond finds, because unlike metals, diamonds are controlled by a monopoly and are useful for few applications. Not to mention the fact that diamonds aren't as rare as the DeBeers Cartel would like everyone to believe. This might finally put a crimp on the so-called 'blood diamonds', and I'll look for emeralds, gold, and platinum-group metals instead.

-cp-

Re:Cool

[saden1]

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.

Re:Not for a while

[barc0001]

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?"

Re:...will it now?

[nacturation]

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.

Re:Quality of computer

[DumbSwede]

Before 1886 there was no cheap process for refining aluminum. Aluminum was considered a precious metal and was even incorporated into things like the Royal Crown Jewels.
(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.

Re:Cool

[killthiskid]

Screw that... screw having a motherboard laced with diamond... try a CPU that can handle multiples of the current 200 degree limit:

But the greatest potential for CVD diamond lies in computing. If diamond is ever to be a practical material for semiconducting, it will need to be affordably grown in large wafers. (The silicon wafers Intel uses, for example, are 1 foot in diameter.) CVD growth is limited only by the size of the seed placed in the Apollo machine. Starting with a square, waferlike fragment, the Linares process will grow the diamond into a prismatic shape, with the top slightly wider than the base. For the past seven years - since Robert Linares first discovered the sweet spot - Apollo has been growing increasingly larger seeds by chopping off the top layer of growth and using that as the starting point for the next batch. At the moment, the company is producing 10-millimeter wafers but predicts it will reach an inch square by year's end and 4 inches in five years. The price per carat: about $5.

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.

Re:But is the reverse true?

[Jodka]

"I'm more concered about the reverse being true."

You must be from Soviet Russia.

Gemstones as investments.

[Jennifer E. Elaan]

Gemstones make *AWEFUL* investments. Changes in the market can cause the loss of the value of anything you have, and seldom do they increase in value.

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.

cubic zirconium

[frankmu]

now i'll have to make sure the cpu is really a diamond before i can overclock it?

Re:Cool

[killthiskid]

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.

Van Royen reluctantly hands the diamonds back. "You have something that nobody else in Antwerp has." he says. "You should be careful - somebody might jump out of the shadows with a mask on." He leans in conspiratorially: "If you want to know how important these diamonds are, talk to Jim Butler with your Navy. He is the man."

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:

Carbon in the form of diamond, DLC (Diamond Like Carbon), carbon nanotubes and conjugated polymers is attracting increasing interest as an electronic material. This is because carbon possesses some interesting and unique properties. In its diamond form it has good thermal conductivity, high elastic modulus and good wear resistance. It is also possible through doping to turn diamond into a semiconductor leading to the possibility of devices that can operate at temperatures of several hundred degrees. Carbon can also form nanotubes, long tube like structures a few nanometers in diameter that can be conducting or semiconducting. Single walled carbon nanotubes are incredibly strong and posses the thermal conductivity of diamond. Carbon nanotubes are being investigated as interconnects in ICs because they are immune from electromigration. The small diameter of nanotubes is being exploited as thin film emission cathodes: a brush of parallel carbon nanotubes orientated normal to a phosphor display. Carbon nanotube technology is being used to create a supercapacitor - a KilloFarad capacitor the size of a drinks can! Carbon also forms long molecules, these polymers are being investigated as fast switching TFT (Thin Film Transistors) and organic light emitting diodes. Flexible polymer displays are already in production. It is hoped this research will lead to the lowest cost per area display technology.

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.

Our research is focused on understanding and manipulating interface chemistry to control, with atomic precision, interfaces between types of organic and inorganic materials. We refer to this area as "interfacial architecture" because, like an architect designing a building, we are interesting in understanding the physical properties of molecular building-blocks and using this information to design, build, and understand more complex structures with precisely-tailored functional properties. We are especially interested in interfaces that link organic/biological molecules with inorganic materials that are used in microelectronics, such as silicon and diamond.

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.

PBS information

[mesterha]

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.

The Heat Issue

[Bruha]

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.

Re:CVD Diamond- I do this.

[BabyP]

RTFA...or, to save you the trouble, from the fifth page of the article:

The third big challenge has been the most daunting for materials scientists: To form microchip circuits, positive and negative conductors are needed. Diamond is an inherent insulator - it doesn't conduct electricity. But both Gemesis and Apollo have been able to inject boron into the lattice, which creates a positive charge. Until now, though, no one had been able to manufacture a negatively charged, or n-type, diamond with sufficient conductivity. When I visit Butler in Washington, he can barely contain his glee. "There's been a major breakthrough," he tells me. In June, together with scientists from Israel and France, he announced a novel way of inverting boron's natural conductivity to form a boron-doped n-type diamond. "We now have a p-n junction," Butler says. "Which means that we have a diamond semiconductor that really works. I can now see an Intel diamond Pentium chip on the horizon."