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Has Silicon Had Its Chips No Say Japanese Inventors
Paris (AFP) Apr 06, 2006 The demise of silicon, frequently predicted by analysts who shake their heads over the costs of making pure silicon to meet rising demands for processing power, has been exaggerated, say Japanese inventors. To cram ever more transistors onto a chip, designers need ultra-pure silicon, a substance that is long and extremely costly to make. It entails taking highly purified natural silicon, which occurs in the mineral silica, and heating it in a vacuum to create a mist of free silicon atoms that then condenses onto a surface. This refining requires conditions to be ultra-clean, for an intruding speck of dust or thimbleful of unwanted gas molecules can ruin the outcome. The complexity and cost have led to frantic research into alternatives to silicon. But a team led by Masahiro Furusawa of Japan's Seiko Epson Corporation, reporting on Thursday in the British weekly scientific journal Nature, say they have made a liquid form of silicon that is both easier and cheaper to make -- and can even be delivered by an inkjet printer. Their basic substance is cyclopentasiline, a silicon-based polymer that comprises five silicon atoms joined in a ring and is liquid at room temperature. Ultraviolet light is used to break open the bonds of some of the rings and let the molecules reform into long, placid chains that have the characteristics of viscous oil. The mixture is then diluted with a solvent, and is so fluid that it can be coated onto a surface by spinning, or even sprayed by an inkjet printer. The resultant liquid film is then baked at around 500 degrees Celsius (932 Fahrenheit) to turn it into a hard mosaic of flat silicon crystals whose semi-conductor qualities are as good as the ultrapure slabs made by conventional refining, according to the paper. In a review of the work, also appearing in Nature, Lisa Rosenberg, a chemist at the University of Victoria in British Columbia, Canada, said the new process was not without its drawbacks, as it still has to rigorously exclude air and water. But she said the ability to make silicon film by inkjet was a clear breakthrough. "(It) will not provide the resolution necessary to pattern a high-density integrated circuit and therefore make a computer chip," said Rosenberg. "But what it will certainly allow is the remarkably straightforward generation of simple, cheap and flexible circuits for displays, as well as a range of other applications -- solar cells, X-ray detections and multi-analyte chemical sensor included."
Source: Agence France-Presse Community Email This Article Comment On This Article Related Links - Computer Chip Architecture, Technology and Manufacture Nano Technology News From SpaceMart.com
Nano World: Magnet Nanostructure For Chips
New York (UPI) Jan 13, 2006All-magnetic microchips without transistors that could pack more computing power, instantly turn on without need to wait for reboot and change function after they are built, could one day develop from a novel device made of magnets only nanometers wide, experts told UPI's Nano World. |
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