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RedDeerGuy1's avatar

Can you update me on the graphene computer chip advances?

Asked by RedDeerGuy1 (24986points) March 17th, 2017

One atom thick , graphene computer chips are said to replace silicon chips in the future. March 17, 2017.

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3 Answers

flutherother's avatar

Seems there is a problem with it holding a charge.

dabbler's avatar

That future will be quite a while from what I see.
Logic chips are made of switches and memory, and as far as I know only very rudimentary versions of either have been made so far out of graphene (didn’t IBM make a gate out of graphene only 2015 or so in Switzerland?). There are major challenges to produce graphene in production amounts, and even bigger challenges reliably fabricating logic devices in large numbers in practical time-frames.
For perspective, today each logic gate is fabricated by hand. An Intel quad-core i7 has 1.4 Billion transistors (switches) on it – and they make lots and lots of those.

Prediction 1
Weightlessness of space will facilitate fabrication of intricately detailed material – e.g. super cable to support the space elevator – super small-patterned circuitry such as graphene circuits could see breakthroughs there.

Prediction 2
I civilization has not collapsed in the meantime, that a century or two from now when you go to the maker shop on the corner to get a new whatever, the circuitry will be forged per order there in a chamber with a carbon plasma that gets shaped into graphene structures by 3-D holographic superpositions of detail. The case can be made with some advanced version of today’s 3-D printing technology. Metal parts might be milled by desktop CNC machines from bars and plates formed on site from recycled stuff.
The maker shop will have patterns on hand – like a Star Trek holodeck library – that you can customize per order.
On the side, a new artform will emerge as descendents of today’s hang drum players slap rhythms into the chamber just as the plasma is put through its coalescing phase.

ARE_you_kidding_me's avatar

Integrated circuits are designed on a computer using CAD tools and laid out on various substrate layers using chemical deposition, photo etching and chemical washes. It’s quite an intricate process. Optical based integrated circuits will be the huge leap.

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