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There isn't any doubt that nanotube transistors can ultimately be higher performing than silicon. The problem is getting yon nanotubes to stick to more than 70
by Symmetry 10y ago
There isn't any doubt that nanotube transistors can ultimately be higher performing than silicon. The problem is getting yon nanotubes to stick to more than 70% of the pads that they're supposed to be sticking to. Even modern silicon processes have the occasional bad transistor but with those it's 1 in 10 million or so, not 1 in ten. For VLSI we really need breakthroughs in getting the nanotubes to go where we want them to.
- InclinedPlane 10y agoNot even that, it's how to max produce them. Today transistors are made in batches of trillions with hundreds of billions per silicon wafer and up to billions per chip. Scaling up to that level of mass production, let alone reliability, is a huge leap from where we are today and most likely will require decades of work.
- sevenless 10y agoThe key advantage of silicon, as I understand it, is that we can mass produce ICs on wafers via light-directed etching and epitaxy. I don't know of an equivalent process for carbon that's been proposed yet.
- Symmetry 10y agoThe way that people currently plan to incorporate carbon into ICs is to create a traditional silicon chip with a number of special pads. When a solution of carbon nanotubes is washed over the chip the tubes stick to the pads and create a connection there. So you would be leveraging all the current silicon technology. The problem is getting an economical source of nanotubes and getting them to stick to the damn pads reliably