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Researchers Build First Molybdenite Microchip

Posted by Unknown on from the long-live-silicon dept.

An anonymous reader writes "A Swiss team may have found an alternative to silicon microchips which could result in smaller, more flexible and less energy hungry processors. The Swiss team's chip does not use silicon, but molybdenite (MoS2) a dark-colored, naturally occurring mineral that is able to be used in much thinner layers (paywall)."

3 of 67 comments (clear)

  1. Duplicate. Old news. Nothing to see here... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    This has already been reported: http://science.slashdot.org/story/11/01/31/021258/molybdenite-as-an-alternative-to-silicon

    And yes, they're the same. They link to the same Nature Nano article...

  2. Re:Wait, what? by ardor · · Score: 5, Informative

    I tend to agree, however, keep in mind:
    Silicon is abundant. Highly pure silicon is not. You need the latter for microchips.

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  3. Re:Wait, what? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Molybdenum is not a rare earth element (lanthanoid), it's a transition metal.
    And rare earth elements are not neccessarily rare.