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New Findings On Graphene As a Conductor With IC Components

ClockEndGooner (1323377) writes Philadelphia's NPR affiliate, WHYY FM, reported today on their Newsworks program that a research team at the University of Pennsylvania have released their preliminary findings on the use of graphene as a conductor in the next generation of computer chips. From the article: "'It's very, very strong mechanically, and it is an excellent electronic material that might be used in future computer chips,' said Charlie Johnson, a professor of physics and astronomy at the University of Pennsylvania. ... Future graphene transistors, Johnson said, are likely to be only tens of atoms across."

3 of 34 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Graphene this, graphene that by geekoid · · Score: 2

    A) If you don't want to read about what's going on in a lab, go read CNN ad comment with those idiots.
    B) There are several produce available right now and more are coming out all the time.

    Stop complaining or go away.

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  2. Graphene is awesome! by penguinoid · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Except for when it comes to actually building stuff with it.

    The potential is there, obviously... but compare to how long it took to roll some up into simple tubes in an economically acceptable manner (ie, nanotubes are only just getting some actual use). I'm sure graphene as a computer component will be totally awesome -- but not until someone finds an *easy* way to build it, at most only 100X the cost of the equivalent in silicon.

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  3. Thanks for linking the paper by Goldsmith · · Score: 3

    Well, that's a terrible summary. At least they linked to the actual paper.

    Good on Charlie for getting all this press out of the paper. This is continuation of work started when I worked in his lab (thin graphene transistors can be made with e-beam lithography, that gets you a bandgap and you can actually think about making a digital transistor, this paper has better measurements and better e-beam lithography - there now you don't have to read either of the papers).

    It's not clear that any of this stuff will ever be used as actual digital logic. I think it's more likely to see commercialization as an analog transistor in a sensor (reason #1 - no e-beam litho required). Someone from Charlie's group will likely be part of making active graphene electronics work out. He's got former students or postdocs at Intel and IBM, and there are at least two of us with graphene based startup companies. So, we're working on making graphene electronics something other than an academic curiosity.