Graphene Transistors to Replace Silicon with 10x the Speed

Posted 02/05/2010 at 3:52pm | by Bart Salisbury

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File this one away for the future: graphene transistors. Graphene makes use of carborn rather than silicon, and transistors produced from it are capable of operating at 100 gigahertz, or about ten times faster than the fastest silicon transistors. And IBM has figured out a way to make production of these little beauties commercially feasible.

Graphene transistors aren’t new. But the methods for making them are clumsy and inefficient. For example, sheets of graphene would be flaked away from graphite--a tricky process at best. And it could only produce transistors with speeds up to 26 gigahertz.

IBM has devised a method for ‘growing’ graphene transistors on the surface of a two-inch silicon carbide wafer. The wafter is heated until the silicon evaporates, leaving behind a thin layer of epitaxial graphene, from which a transistor is produced. In addition, IBM improved the process by using better materials for parts of the transistor, such as the insulator.

Speedier transistors translate into speedier computing. Graphene transistors, therefore, hold promise for bumping up hardware potential on motherboards and add-in cards. (Not CPUs, though--graphene won’t work for CPUs.) While things will get speedier, for us it won’t be right away. Projected first applications will be in military devices. After that, maybe, graphene transistors will work their way into consumer electronics.

Image Credit: IBM