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Science

Researchers Finally Create Metal Wires Made from Carbon (berkeley.edu) 72

Posted by EditorDavid from the silicon-substitutes dept.
University of California at Berkeley has made a big announcement: Transistors based on carbon rather than silicon could potentially boost computers' speed and cut their power consumption more than a thousandfold — think of a mobile phone that holds its charge for months — but the set of tools needed to build working carbon circuits has remained incomplete until now.

A team of chemists and physicists at the University of California, Berkeley, has finally created the last tool in the toolbox, a metallic wire made entirely of carbon, setting the stage for a ramp-up in research to build carbon-based transistors and, ultimately, computers.

"Staying within the same material, within the realm of carbon-based materials, is what brings this technology together now," said Felix Fischer, UC Berkeley professor of chemistry, noting that the ability to make all circuit elements from the same material makes fabrication easier. "That has been one of the key things that has been missing in the big picture of an all-carbon-based integrated circuit architecture."
Heat was used to induce the molecules to join together, in a process Fischer compares to an atomic-scale set of Legos. "They are all precisely engineered so that there is only one way they can fit together. It's as if you take a bag of Legos, and you shake it, and out comes a fully assembled car. That is the magic of controlling the self-assembly with chemistry..."

"I believe this technology will revolutionize how we build integrated circuits in the future..." Fischer said.
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Researchers Finally Create Metal Wires Made from Carbon More

Researchers Finally Create Metal Wires Made from Carbon

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  • Since when... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by rossdee ( 243626 ) on Sunday September 27, 2020 @05:49PM (#60549006)

    is carbon a metal ?

  • Comment removed (Score:3)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Sunday September 27, 2020 @05:51PM (#60549008)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Just because you reduce the power consumed by computation does not mean you reduce the power consumed by data transmission, data reception, powering a display (something that already consumes a huge percentage of a phones power budget), power conversion losses, battery self discharge. > think of a mobile phone that holds its charge for months Wow what a specious comment.

      And all of that is a fraction of the power used by data centers. I do not know what the energy usage of data centers is versus the personal computing devices used by the entire world population It was the author of the summary/article that misunderstands the true importance of what such a breakthrough would allow.

    • For me, I would like a mobile phone with an exceptionally efficient receiver. I hardly ever initiate calls, so I do not use much RF transmit power. I like to receive texts and other data promptly. This needs a receiver to be awake most of the time.

  • As far as I understand, the "metal" definition here is the ability to conduct electricity, which this form of carbon can now do.

    • Mammals are warm-blooded. So a chicken is a mammal or at least mammal-like. Triangles have three sides, but a square is effectively a super triangle because it three sides plus an additional side. (end-of-hyperbole)

      Categorization is important. And it can be useful to have a category ignore some properties in a very narrow context. But I do not consider a science publication for the general public to be a narrow, quiet the opposite. Headlines like this are part of the unsurprising tread of bad science journa

    • Carbon is usually conductive. It's just usually not nearly as conductive as a metal. This form is.

  • "Staying within the same material, within the realm of carbon-based materials, is what brings this technology together now," said Felix Fischer, UC Berkeley professor of chemistry, noting that the ability to make all circuit elements from the same material makes fabrication easier. "That has been one of the key things that has been missing in the big picture of an all-carbon-based integrated circuit architecture."

    That seems a little misleading to me. We will still need to dope carbon to provide n-type and

  • As another poster pointed out, there is much more to making an IC than improving one parameter. Consider GaAs. It should have whomped Si technology in RF applications with its higher mobility. Should have. But Si has other advantages so most RF is still done with Si. I have been amazed over the decades how they keep squeezing a bit more out of Si.

    • As another poster pointed out, there is much more to making an IC than improving one parameter. Consider GaAs. It should have whomped Si technology in RF applications with its higher mobility. Should have. But Si has other advantages so most RF is still done with Si. I have been amazed over the decades how they keep squeezing a bit more out of Si.

      From my poor understanding, it seems like CMOS was the big win for Si. GaAs can't do it, because of poor hole mobility. It looks like non-Si semiconductors are going to be used for 5G amps, but the rest of the chain will still be all Si.

  • maybe... sky hooks are cool.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by HiThere ( 15173 )

      Space Elevators are a bad idea on planets as heavy as Earth. On Mars they might be a good idea. But Space Elevators are only one variety of Sky Hook. My favorite is the PinWheel. It's not as efficient as a space elevator would be, but it's a lot cheaper, and a lot less dangerous, and a lot easier to build. It's defect is that it needs to transfer momentum equally in both directions, or the orbit decays. If that EM drive, or some other similar thing, can be made to work decently, that could solve this

  • Serious question (Score:3)

    by backslashdot ( 95548 ) on Sunday September 27, 2020 @11:07PM (#60549508)

    People have been predicting silicon's demise ever since Khufu used granite to build the pyramid at Giza.

    2011 worries: https://www.extremetech.com/co... [extremetech.com]

  • Bloody awful title (Score:3)

    by Tough Love ( 215404 ) on Sunday September 27, 2020 @11:42PM (#60549536)

    Graphine nanoribbons with metallic properties. Not metal wires made from carbon. +1 for the tech, -10 for the reporting.

    • There are many non-metallic conductors that perform like metals. Indium Tin Oxide (ITO) is used to make transparent conductive tracks on LCDs.

  • There is no such thing as Legos.

  • I've felt for a while that eventually "transistors" will be non-physical "devices" that are arrangements of electric and/or magnetic fields.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by HiThere ( 15173 )

      You might consider what you mean by "non-physical". I've always considered electrons to be physical (albeit with some weird properties).

  • Well, since IBM managed to make a graphene transistor in 2011, I thought that's gonna be the next step in computing. The question is only who will be the first to make a graphene CPU? It will be much more efficient, and much faster than a silicon one. The process of making them is also not so very different from making the common silicon CPUs, so this is obviously the logical next step in computing. But I'm sooooo interested in who's going to be the first... any ideas?

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