IBM Hints New Generation Silicon Chips - The Graphene Chip

Will Graphene prove to be a better alternative for silicon chips? Perhaps #-Link-Snipped-#knows the answer. The company has recently invented technology of placing #-Link-Snipped-#on a 200mm wafer. The development will boost efforts of scientists of integrating Graphene in electronic parts so as to make them more efficient.
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The process followed by IBM researchers is reported in #-Link-Snipped-#. The meeting was held in Washington D.C. The research team led by Shu-Jen Han of IBM’s T.J. Watson Research Center showed that #-Link-Snipped-# on a wafer. The group initially collected Graphene on Copper foil by heating the carbon vapor to a temperature of about 900^oC. The PMMA layer was used to coat this Graphene layer collected. Secondly the researchers the trenches or gaps if any on the wafer on which Graphene is supposed to be mounted is filled with Tungsten. Now the Graphene layer which is sandwiched between Copper foil and PMMA layer is placed on the wafer by dissolving the copper.

It is expected that scientists will come with the commercial applications of the technology sooner. However if the wafer is to be used in chip form itself, the efficiency of the resulting device will have to be checked. Graphene which is touted to possess excellent electrical properties is expected to prove worthy than the present day chips by IBM.

The multinational company is perhaps bidding on the new technology to be the future of conventional chips. For example the Graphene transistors built by IBM cannot be used for switching circuits ON and OFF; this because of the inherent absence of a band gap which is more prominent in semiconductors. Scientists are busy fixing that problem and we will soon get to know more about ever expanding role of Graphene in industry.