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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."
And it specializes in Bamboolean operations...
Pretending this is my office full of bitter coworkers..
but, you already knew that.
If the computer has wood.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
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.
Another advantage of cellulose based wafers is that using traditional Japanese technology, they can be made even smaller, and in pretty shapes like swans.
Next time they tell you that you'll set your computer on fire if you overclock, you better believe them.
Civilisation gets eaten by a fungus.
Now if they can just replace solder and thermal paste with duct tape and concrete patch....
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
please don't burst my bubble.
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
They cut down a tree to make a chip that degrades over time so you have to buy another one. The eco-friendliness is very apparent.
So... would a foundry based on this tech... be a "wood-chipper"?
A Beowulf shrubbery of these!
Being made out of nature, doesn't make it good for nature.
How can you tell how old your iPhone is? Call it and count the rings.
Landscapers are becoming in demand because of their ability to provide wood chips.
Play Nintendogs, now with more bark.
Search functionality vastly improved for native binary trees.
God spoke to me
All termite jokes aside, this could have applications where disposability is a criterion. Those animated greeting cards could now be more annoying than ever before.
Also provides an useful indicator whether your overclocked rig is running too hot!
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Pine FTW!
gives a whole new meaning to the phrase bit rot
Bugs. Bugs eat cellulose.
Thus you need to consider more than one little bit, which is the easiest bit, of the long chain of effort between sand and CPU or the new material and CPU.
As for the biodegradable rant - it's not cellulose anymore and may be no more biodegradable than many plastics.
The above assumes you are being honest and are merely mistaken.
However I suspect such an embarrassing major error was actually intentional and pretended shock jock contagious stupidity in the hope of fooling people to reject something out of hand just because "green" was in the summary and thus it needs to be put down immediately for ideological reasons. If that's the case I suggest you grow up, pull your head in, and consider it in practical terms instead of fucking stupid political games.
"The modern world can bite my splintery wooden ass!"
Maybe this will finally shut up the people who complain that eBooks just aren't like the real thing.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
I read the title and was immediately "No."
Seriously, news like these are not news and misleading titles and vague speculation does not make it any more credible.
a semiconductor chip made out of wood. I wasn't about to repeat the same mistake when I purchased that semiconductor chip made of straw.
but what if I want to put my smartphone in the paper-shredder when I'm done with it? [when Apple releases a new model]
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
" They're 400 feet wide, the binary maths is performed by interacting cantilevers and push rod slats, and, it's powered by push pedals and a river with a water wheel. Augmented Canadian tech at it's finest!"
The purpose of existence is to make money.
An equally valid statement.
Why is Snark Required?
So does it turn into rocket fuel when it catches fire and you blow a high powered fan on it?
Wood, and cellulose, are good insulators... of heat, as well. How ya gonna cool the chips? Put layers of cooling tubes through the chips?
mark "man that wood-chip is really burning... I mean, *really* burning.
Si isn't exactly toxic for rare... You'd think they would play up the flexible and transparent instead of the biodegradable.
X
when you add a layer graphene using a specialized, hand-held instrument.
How is this different from other designs that use different substrate material than used in active layer? It is just prepreg epoxy paper with thin silicon or GaAs layer on rather than using silicon/GaAs for substrate as well and this has been looked at for some time. Full article even admits paper is one of the materials used in such designs previously and this seems more of the same but they are making it sound new calling it wood. It isn't wood because there is no lignin, hence alpha cellulose papers are called "wood free" papers.
They may have tweaked the design a little by changing the type of paper but this isn't some amazing breakthrough that turns IC design upside down the way they make out, also bashing GaAs as nasty implying this doesn't have it in because hey it is wholesome "gree" tech from trees when it will still have GaAs layer in all the same unless silicon is prefered as it is in many cases in which case moot point. About as new as changing the structural materials in FR4 for PCB construction from epoxy prepreg'd E-glass to paper (or both in CEMs) only they don't BS about making some eco friendly new way to mount circuits when they do that.
Sounds like the next big leap in planned obsolescence.