Sillicon may get replaced for indium-gallium-arsenide in chips

[vickybat]

3D III-V Transistors Could Enable Lighter Notebooks

Yup guys, scientists say indium-gallium-arsenide has superior electron flow resulting in smaller and efficient chips. Read the link for more detail.

 

[coderunknown]

but when wil this be applied? 16nm node or 11nm?

 

[Jaskanwar Singh]

nice info, batman.

 

[Liverpool_fan]

Arsenide? Prepare for even worse consequences regarding e-waste.

 

[skeletor]

Can't see this happening on a major scale. Silicon is the 2nd most abundant element in the Earth's crust.

We'd need other viable alternatives or advancements.

 

[AcceleratorX]

Superior electron flow would only matter when leakage currents and heat issues are significant. What the scientists are actually getting is that they created a nanostructure engineered for better electron flow.

Note that "better" here means unobstructed by physical barriers like a molecule blocking the path and the like. The most significant effect of this is less heat generation.

 

[Cyrus_the_virus]

A big no to Arsenide!

 

[Sarath]

Silicon is found in sand. Where is this trio available? I don't see it being economical. :/

 

[Alok]

What about availability??

 

[dashing.sujay]

GaAs is so high that a corresponding layer would be only a few micrometers thick and mechanically unstable.
Silicon is a pure element, avoiding the problems of stoichiometric imbalance and thermal unmixing of GaAs.
Silicon has a nearly perfect lattice, impurity density is very low and allows to build very small structures (currently down to 25 nm). GaAs in contrast has a very high impurity density, which makes it difficult to build ICs with small structures, so the 500 nm process is a common process for GaAs.

Due to its arsenic content, it is considered highly toxic and carcinogenic

And yeah, availability will be an issue, making it more expensive; but lets hope its other features may balance the pricing but still not as Si IMO.