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.

Comments

3D chips

[BlueParrot]

To be honest I'm more interested in seeing proper 3D chips become reality. If you find some affordable way to produce chips with, say 10 000 layers, then processing power per volume unit would increase rapidly.

I think the major obstacle is going to be what to do about heat. The center of such a chip-stack would probably get quite hot so you probably want to run some form of liquid cooling through the chip itself. Alternatively materials like silicon carbide or diamond might be able to cope better with the high power density.