IBM Creates First High-Speed Graphene Circuits

Posted 06/10/2011 at 1:43pm | by Ryan Whitwam

3

Comments

Print

Researchers at IBM have announced that they recently managed to create the first high-speed computer circuits out of a material called graphene. This process has possible applications in displays, processors, and high-speed communication. While this advancement is interesting, we’re not quite ready to ditch traditional transistors quite yet.

Graphene is composed of a single layer of Carbon atoms in a lattice structure. Researchers have created single grapheme transistors in the past, but only now has an entire circuit been produced. At present, graphene does not behave like CMOS transistors in current CPUs. It does not have the same voltage conduction properties, meaning it cannot switch on and off like today’s logic transistors do.

That hasn’t stopped industry from investing heavily in the technology. Applications in communication and OLED displays are much closer to reality. DARPA has funded most of IBM’s research on the substance. IBM, in addition to working on integrated circuits with graphene, is improving the production of the material. If graphene is as useful as many think, they’re going to need a lot of it.