Engineers at IBM Research have built the world’s most advanced graphene-based chip, with performance that’s 10,000 times better than previous graphene ICs. The key to the breakthrough is a new manufacturing technique that allows the graphene to be deposited on the chip without it being damaged (something that has heretofore been very hard to achieve). Perhaps more importantly, though, this new method is actually compatible with standard silicon CMOS processes. In short, we are closer than ever before to realizing a commercial graphene computer chip.
As luck would have it, I actually got to hold a wafer of these graphene chips when I visited IBM Research in December. That’s my hand in the photo up there, and the shot below of a graphene wafer being tested was taken by me. I also got to see the machines and tools that IBM uses to create bulk graphene, and the CMOS fab where the underlying silicon wafers are produced. In short, I am rather uniquely positioned to tell you all about IBM’s graphene chip — including the stuff that isn’t mentioned in the press release.
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Revolution coming with graphene based circuit for wireless devices
