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Wednesday, February 17, 2010

"CHIPS: Carbon semiconductors clear CMOS hurdle"

Silicon complementary oxide metal semiconductors (CMOS) are getting too hot to handle, but cool-running carbon-based CMOS now stands ready to take its place. Look for pure crystalline sheets of doped carbon, called graphene, to replace silicon-based CMOS chips in five to ten years. R.C.J.


Carbon semiconductors fashioned from pure crystalline sheets of graphene outperform silicon but have lacked a foolproof method for creating the p- and n-type devices required for complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) transistors. Now the Georgia Institute of Technology claims to have a devised a one-step graphene doping process, paving the way for commercial fabrication. Georgia Tech's technique uses a commonly available spin-on-glass (SOG) material applied to graphene sheets. The grayscale material can be patterned to provide either p-type or n-type doping by merely varying the dose of radiation.
Full Text: http://bit.ly/ceEGjt