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> It is easy to make transistors as small as on silicon on most other semiconductors Yikes, [citation needed] here. No, it absolutely is not. All the etch an
by ajross 1y ago
> It is easy to make transistors as small as on silicon on most other semiconductors
Yikes, [citation needed] here. No, it absolutely is not. All the etch and litho chemistry is highly specific to the substrate and dopants. You can't just feed a germanium crystal through an etcher tool in a TSMC fab and get anything but a brick out the other side.
I'm not aware of anyone anywhere doing low-nm lithography on anything but silicon (even in a demo context, or even announcing plans for the capacity), but I'm willing to be educated.
- adrian_b 1y agoNobody has done low-nm lithography on anything but silicon, on integrated circuits. The reason is that such integrated circuits could not compete in cost, so developing all the fabrication equipment for them would not be worthwhile. On the other hand, on special discrete devices, e.g. microwave transistors, and on experimental devices, "low-nm" (which means tens of nm for the most advanced devices) has been done for a long time. The low fabrication yields, which would be unacceptable for the mass production of integrated circuits, have much less relevance for small and expensive discrete devices and for experimental devices.