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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)."

5 of 67 comments (clear)

  1. Wait, what? by Wonko+the+Sane · · Score: 5, Insightful

    On top of that, they also use numerous precious metals including gold, platinum and silicon.

    Gold, sure; platinum, no problem; silicon, WTF?

    Currently used as a strengthening agent in plastic, molybdenite is abundant in the natural word. Speaking to the BBC, Prof Andras Kis, the director of the Laboratory of Nanoscale Electronics and Structures (LANES) in Lausanne, said that his team’s research could transform the world of computing. ”[Currently] there is something like 19 million metric tonnes around,” Prof Kis said in an interview. ”You can just go on some websites on the internet and buy a 1cm by 1cm crystal for around $100 [£64].”

    Abundant as compared to what? Silicon is the third most abundant element on earth and makes up 15% of its mass. Molybdenum is a rare earth element. Also, you can't use the current price of some element based on it not being used to make microprocessors and expect that the cost won't change if you increase the demand for it by many orders of magnitude. There might be good reasons for building microprocessors from molybdenite but replacing scarce silicon with abundant molybdenite is not one of them.

    1. 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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    2. 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.

  2. 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...

  3. More info by Geoffrey.landis · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Moly disulfide is mostly known as a lubricant.

    Interesting, but I wouldn't sell my stocks in silicon electronics yet. Silicon is way down the learning curve. I wouldn't bet a new semiconductor against it.

    Some of what the article says is a little dubious, like the fact that silicon "The surface likes to oxidise - it likes to bind with oxygen... and that makes its electrical properties degrade when you want to make a very thin film." Yes, it forms oxide easily. No, that doesn't "degrade" the electrical properties-- in fact, this is exactly why silicon is so incredibly useful in electronics. Oxide, and the fact that silicon oxide passivates the surface to prevent electron-hole recombination at the dangling bonds, is what makes silicon electronics possible. I note that the moly disulfide transistors use hafnium oxide for a gate. That's a high dielectric constant material that is indeed also used in silicon, but the silicon oxide is still the critical interface.

    By the way, I think there's slightly better info from eetimes http://www.eetimes.com/electronics-news/4212757/New-material-for-semis-said-to-beat-silicon or physicsworld http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/45056

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