Samsung Claims Breakthrough In Graphene Chip Design 88
jfruh (300774) writes "Graphene, a carbon-based crystalline lattice that is extremely strong, lightweight, and an excellent conductor of electricity and heat, is coveted as a potential base for semiconductor chip design, and Samsung, working with the Sungkyungkwan University School of Advanced Materials Science and Engineering, has claimed a big jump towards that goal. With IBM also making progress in this realm, the days of silicon could actually be numbered."
Producing them is one thing (Score:5, Insightful)
Producing them cheaply enough to rival chips made of processed sand is another matter entirely. Anyone remember gallium arsenide chips that were going to eat silicon for lunch back in the 80s? Yeah , well.... still niche.
Don't Worry (Score:-1, Insightful)
Some asshole on Slashdot knows why it will never work.
Was this a PR statement or major breakthrough? (Score:5, Insightful)
That seems like an odd announcement to make...if it's just one more step in the research process and this doesn't make graphene a viable replacement *yet*...
Re:Producing them is one thing (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Producing them is one thing (Score:5, Insightful)
Incompetent article writer? (Score:5, Insightful)
Seriously, this is great news! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Producing them is one thing (Score:4, Insightful)
The problem is that transistors are thermoelectric devices. You switch them on and off by heating them up to change their conductivity. Silicon chips can withstand temperatures well beyond the point at which the plastic packages they are mounted to break down, but that temperature is also well beyond their switching point, making them useless as a computational device.
If you could produce a semiconductor that was useful at 3000F, then that would be its normal operating temperature, and you would need to feed it a high enough core voltage to allow it to heat itself up to that temperature to switch.