Slashdot Mirror
Graphene Transistors 10x Faster Than Silicon
Asadullah Ahmad writes "IBM has created transistors made from carbon atoms, which operate at 100 gigahertz, while using a manufacturing process that is compatible with current semiconductor fabrication. With silicon close to its physical limits, graphene seems like a viable replacement until quantum computing gets to desktop. Quoting: 'Researchers have previously made graphene transistors using laborious mechanical methods, for example by flaking off sheets of graphene from graphite; the fastest transistors made this way have reached speeds of up to 26 gigahertz. Transistors made using similar methods have not equaled these speeds.'" The other day we discussed what sounds like similar research by a group of scientists at Tohoku University; that team did not produce transistors, however.
Year 2173:
"Hidrogen-Unobtanium polycomposites seems like a viable replacement until quantum computing gets to desktop."
"This is not pie-in-the-sky stuff, this is real," he says. "This development is really going to turn into a communications device not too long from now."
So, I won't be playing Crysis on this transistor next month, but I might be using it to make a phone call "not too long from now".
It was bad enough when computers were made out of mere sand, now they will be made out of coal?
Can't they make computers out of sapphires or something so I can feel sophisticated when I buy it?
You're assuming that the transistors themselves will have to go into a hostile environment. Some of them do, but when you're talking about HPC then they'll probably be in a remote location, safe and protected (like Cheyenne Mountain, maybe near the Stargate...).
Entomologically speaking, the spider is not a bug, it's a feature.
These transistors are only about 9x faster than silicon, not 10x faster as the Slashdot headline claims.
Oh, well, in that case don't even bother.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?