December 11, 2006
A Valley by any other name…
The semiconductor revolution looks like rolling on as scientists find new materials to combat the fact that the laws of physics are closing in on silicon and threatening to put an end to relentless miniaturisation.
In the latest development, MIT engineers have developed chips using a material called indium gallium arsenide, a semiconductor which allows electrons to travel many times faster than in silicon. The prototypes will be shown at an international electronics meeting today and tomorrow.
The InGaAs chips carry 2.5 times more current than today’s state of the art silicon while each InGaAs transistor is only 60 billionth of a metre in size, equivalent to the best of today’s silicon technology.In the future, these chips will replace silicon, the experts think. So let’s hear it for Indium Gallium Arsenide Valley… No? perhaps it loses something in the translation.
Alan Cane, London.
