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Computer Chips Made of Wood Promise Greener Electronics
alphadogg writes: Researchers in the U.S. and China have developed semiconductor chips that are almost entirely made out of a wood-derived material. In addition to being biodegradable, the cost of production is much less than conventional semiconductors. According to the NetworkWorld report: "The researchers used a cellulose material for the substrate of the chip, which is the part that supports the active semiconductor layer. Taken from cellulose, a naturally abundant substance used to make paper, cellulose nanofibril (CNF) is a flexible, transparent and sturdy material with suitable electrical properties. That makes CNF better than alternative chip designs using natural materials such as paper and silk, they argue in a paper published in the journal Nature Communications."
So they replace the substrate with wood ... instead of silica ... the argument being that wood is plentiful and biodegradable and biologically safe ...
Except ... Silica is more plentiful and more biologically safe since its essentially biologically inert.
As an advantage, silica is NOT biodegradable, because I want my chips to last, not fall apart over the winter when it sheds its leaves.
Silica is NOT the issue for the environment in CPUs, its the production materials and doping agents that are horrible on living things and hard to dispose of.
So congrats ... you solved a problem ... wait, no, you didn't really do anything productive. Not seeing any redeeming quality about a chip produced this way and seeing plenty of down sides.
Whats next, you're going to try and convince me that the aircraft carrier made of sawdust and ice they tried to construct during WWII really was a brilliant plant for a warship sailing in the south pacific?
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
since global ore reserves of current substrates such as silicon and aluminum dioxide are rare and almost depleted.
Indeed. Silicon is already down to only 30% of the earth's crust, and aluminum has dwindled to only 8%. We are down to our last few peta-tonnes.