Engineers Build A New "4-D Transistor" That Could Replace Silicon Within 10 Years

The cool engineers at Purdue University have come up with a new Christmas-Tree shaped 4-D transistor that might show us the future of our semiconductor industry.  Made up of a material called indium-gallium-arsenide, the transistor's three small nanowires will not make use of silicon like the conventional transistors. And so this transistor is not only replacing silicon, but also paving the way for more efficient and faster Integrated Circuits; which again means considerably lighter laptops that don't heat-up easily.

In the current 3D transistors, the length of gates is about 22 nanometers and research is going on to make them as small as 10 nms by 2018. And, you're probably wondering where does the new dimension for 4-D come from. Well, the engineers have experienced improved performance by linking the transistors vertically in parallel - which means the fourth dimension. So, they call it a 4-D transistor.

[caption id="attachment_44077" align="aligncenter" width="630"]#-Link-Snipped-# A pile of transistors[/caption]

The research work is on going and two papers regarding same will be presented at International Electron Devices Meeting on Dec. 8-12 in San Francisco. It makes sense to mention here that these are "the most newsworthy topics and papers to be presented" during that conference. The work, based at the Birck Nanotechnology Center in Purdue's Discovery Park, is funded by the National Science Foundation and the Semiconductor Research Corp. We are keeping an eye for this one.

Via: New '4-D' transistor is preview of future computers - Purdue University Image Credit: #-Link-Snipped-#