Door open for silicon replacement
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A breakthrough in the way scientists make crystals could lead to a replacement for silicon in electronic devices.
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Don't forget to consider a company's ability to obtain silicon wafers.
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The silicon factories where a speck of dust is a big problem
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New Japanese research into silicon carbide growth could revolutionise the electronics industry. A team of scientists has developed a method of making near-perfect silicon carbide crystals.
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One of the last frontiers of semiconductor technology - environments where electronic devices have to run at high power, in fierce heat or at lethal doses of radiation - may be about to fall.
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This time they mean it For years graphene has proved a cruel temptress for the semiconductor avant garde. The material - a layer of carbon atoms grouped in the ever popular honeycomb lattice - promised major performance gains over silicon. The problem with the stuff, however, has been arranging it in a large enough layer to replicate the 8- to 12-inch circular wafers favored by the major chip makers.â¦
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In an advance that could lead to lighter spacecraft and smarter cars, researchers have developed a new technique for producing a high-quality semiconductor that&#39;s much more resistant to extreme conditions than the silicon found in most of today&#39;s
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Blog: Amberwave says you need to crack silicon to pile stuff on
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It's a question of keeping up standards. That famous slab in Paris has lost 50 micrograms, so Australian scientists are creating a perfect sphere out of Silicon 28. They even know how many atoms it'll contain.
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Advanced Micro Devices has begun to incorporate a form of strained silicon into its chips, a design twist that will let the company increase the performance of its processors.
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- The Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) on  Wednesday slashed its forecast for 2007 global microchip sales  growth citing a decline in the average selling prices in  several key market segments.
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Stanford researchers say silicon nanowires could help extend the life of a lithium ion battery for laptops from 4 hours to 40 hours.
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A metal pad that can recharge devices placed on top of it has come to market.
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CNET News.com reports today that IBM will start shipping its PCs with a new chip which stores passwords and computer&#39;s identity in silicon, making it harder for hackers to access.
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IBM announced Tuesday that it has created a process allowing its manufacturing facilities to repurpose otherwise scrap semiconductor wafers.Since the silicon wafers need to be nearly flawless in order to be used in computers, mobile phones, video games, and other consumer electronics, the imperfect ones are normally erased with acidic chemicals and discarded. IBM had been sandblasting its castoffs&#160;to remove proprietary material. Some of the pieces, called &quot;monitors,&quot; are reused for test purposes.The new process cleans the silicon pieces with water and an abrasive pad, leaving them in better condition for reuse. The entire process to clean an 8-inch wafer is about one minute. Eric White, the inventor of the process, said that IBM can now get five or six monitor wafers out of one that would have been crushed and discarded. The cleaned wafers can also be sold to the solar-cell industry, which has a high demand for the silicon material to use in solar panels. White said that shortage would need to be &quot;extreme&quot; to use the wafers in consumer electronics and that IBM does not plan to do so.The IBM site in Burlington, Vt., has been using the process and reported an annual savings in 2006 of more than $500,000. Expansion of the new technique has begun at IBM&#39;s site in East Fishkill, N.Y., and 2007 savings estimates are more than $1.5 million. The Vermont and New York plants are IBM&#39;s only semiconductor manufacturing sites.Chris Voce, an analyst with Forrester Resarch, does not anticipate savings for the end-user, but added, &quot;When a semiconductor company can improve its process and drive efficiency into their manufacturing process, that&#39;s always great for their margins, but it&#39;s even better when there are broader benefits for the environment.&quot; Annually, IBM estimates that the semiconductor industry discards as many as 3 million wafers worldwide.IBM plans to patent the new process and provide details for the semiconductor manufacturing industry.
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In an advance that could lead to lighter spacecraft and smarter cars, researchers have developed a new technique for producing a high-quality computer chip that is much more resistant to extreme conditions than the silicon found in most of today&#39;s
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Nanotube transistors coated with light-sensitive polymers could replace today's digital camera technology