{"id":18049,"date":"2015-10-01T23:47:19","date_gmt":"2015-10-02T06:47:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2015\/10\/ibm-unlocks-the-secret-to-carbon-nanotube-transistors"},"modified":"2017-06-04T20:22:17","modified_gmt":"2017-06-05T03:22:17","slug":"ibm-unlocks-the-secret-to-carbon-nanotube-transistors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2015\/10\/ibm-unlocks-the-secret-to-carbon-nanotube-transistors","title":{"rendered":"IBM unlocks the secret to carbon nanotube transistors"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\\'blog-photo\\' href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/ibm-unlocks-the-secret-to-carbon-nanotube-transistors.jpeg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Following Moore\u2019s law is getting harder and harder, especially as existing components reach their physical size limitations. Parts like silicon transistor contacts \u2014 the \u201cvalves\u201d within a transistor that allow electrons to flow \u2014 simply can\u2019t be shrunken any further. However, IBM announced a major engineering achievement on Thursday that could revolutionize how computers operate: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.engadget.com\/2012\/01\/28\/ibm-builds-9-nanometer-carbon-nanotube-transistor-puts-silicon\/\">they\u2019ve figured out<\/a> how to swap out the silicon transistor contacts for smaller, more efficient, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.engadget.com\/2012\/10\/28\/ibm-labs-develops-initial-step-towards-commercial-nanotubes\/\">carbon nanotubes<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The problem engineers are facing is that the smaller silicon transistor contacts get, the higher their electrical resistance becomes. There comes a point where the components simply get too small to conduct electrons efficiently. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.engadget.com\/2015\/06\/27\/samsung-graphene-coated-silicon-anode\/\">Silicon<\/a> has reached that point. But that\u2019s where the carbon nanotubes come in. These structures measure less than 10 nanometers in diameter \u2014 that\u2019s less than half the size of today\u2019s smallest silicon transistor contact. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.engadget.com\/2015\/08\/17\/ibm-wires-up-neuromorphic-chips-like-a-rodents-brain\/\">IBM<\/a> actually had to devise a new means of attaching these tiny components. Known as an \u201cend-bonded contact scheme\u201d the 10 nm electrical leads are chemically bonded to the metal substructure. Replacing these contacts with carbon nanotubes won\u2019t just allow for computers to crunch more data, faster. This breakthrough ensures that they\u2019ll continue to shrink, following Moore\u2019s Law, for several iterations beyond what silicon components are capable of.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThese chip innovations are necessary to meet the emerging demands of cloud computing, Internet of Things and Big Data systems,\u201d Dario Gil, vice president of Science &amp; Technology at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.engadget.com\/2015\/07\/27\/ibm-wants-to-cool-data-centers-with-their-own-waste-heat\/\">IBM Research<\/a>, said in a statement. \u201cAs technology nears the physical limits of silicon, new materials and circuit architectures must be ready to deliver the advanced technologies that will drive the Cognitive Computing era. This breakthrough shows that computer chips made of carbon nanotubes will be able to power systems of the future sooner than the industry expected.\u201d The study will be formally published October 2nd, in the journal <em>Science<\/em>. This breakthrough follows a number of other recent minimization milestones including transistors that are only <a href=\"http:\/\/www.engadget.com\/2015\/04\/29\/3-atom-thick-transistor-promises-ultra-thin-electronics\/\">3-atoms thick<\/a> or constructed from <a href=\"http:\/\/www.engadget.com\/2015\/07\/26\/single-molecule-transistor\/\">a single atom<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.engadget.com\/2015\/10\/01\/ibm-unlocks-the-secret-to-carbon-nanotube-transistors\/\" target=\"_blank\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Following Moore\u2019s law is getting harder and harder, especially as existing components reach their physical size limitations. Parts like silicon transistor contacts \u2014 the \u201cvalves\u201d within a transistor that allow electrons to flow \u2014 simply can\u2019t be shrunken any further. However, IBM announced a major engineering achievement on Thursday that could revolutionize how computers operate: [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":367,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1523,38,418,1635,47],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18049","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-computing","category-engineering","category-internet","category-materials","category-neuroscience"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18049","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/367"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18049"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18049\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":69435,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18049\/revisions\/69435"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18049"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18049"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18049"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}