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."

Comments

HCF joke in 3...2...1...

[willworkforbeer]

And it specializes in Bamboolean operations...

Stupid

[BitZtream]

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?

Re:Stupid

[tyme]

Except that this substrate is not being used for Si based semiconductors, but for GaAs instead. Also, using the wood-based substrate means that you can use 99% less of the semiconductor material (GaAs which is rarer than Si, and also poisonous). This will make specific classes of electronic devices (specifically radio and microwave frequency devices) much cheaper, and much less hazardous to dispose of, which is a big win.

Re:Computers Kill Trees

[x0ra]

Some research on the subject... https://ec.europa.eu/jrc/en/ne...

Imagine...

[UdoKeir]

A Beowulf shrubbery of these!

Oh the puns write themselves

[GoodNewsJimDotCom]

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.

Re:Computers Kill Trees

[TechyImmigrant]

For the highest amount of CO2 sequestration you need the plant matter to fall into an anaerobic bog and slowly sink into the ground as new stuff lands on top. After a few hundred million years, an advanced society then digs it as coal and oil and burns it, dumping all the carbon back into the atmosphere.

There's a huge amount of stored carbon in the ground. It's only a problem when you burn it. Burn current plant matter and and you're only returning the carbon that came from the air recently, not the carbon that's been saved up for millions of years.