Ultra-Thin Alternative To Silicon
An anonymous reader writes "There's good news in the search for the next generation of semiconductors. Researchers with the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and UC Berkeley have successfully integrated ultra-thin layers of the semiconductor indium arsenide onto a silicon substrate to create a nanoscale transistor with excellent electronic properties (abstract). A member of the III–V family of semiconductors, indium arsenide offers several advantages as an alternative to silicon, including superior electron mobility and velocity, which makes it an outstanding candidate for future high-speed, low-power electronic devices."
We're talking about a 10nm layer across the surface of a chip - that's about a square centimeter. If anyone seriously complains about 50% of this being Arsenic, I would happily scrape it off and eat it in front of them. I don't think it would be a quantity large enough for the human eye to see.
silicon != silicone, dammit.