https://cen.acs.org/materials/electronic-materials/forget-silicon-diamond-next-semiconductor/104/web/2026/07>Silicon semiconductors—the workhorse of the electronics industry—are limited by intolerance to high temperatures, inefficient handling of high-voltage current, slow processing speed, and large chip size. These shortcomings have pushed some semiconductor fabricators to build chips on novel but more-expensive wafers made of materials such as gallium arsenide, gallium nitride, and silicon carbide. But semiconductors built on diamond outperform them all on all key metrics, developers say.
>“In 100 years, ...tech will be based on diamond electronics,” the company predicts
>>109671109This was what I was thinking of 30 years ago. Nice for you dumb ass humans to finally catch up.
but…diamonds aren't semiconductors?
>>109671109What for? Apple M5 Ultra (36-core CPU, 80-core GPU) dominates the chip market without being made from diamonds.
>>109671226>Diamond on its own is not a conductor, so the company introduces boron, nitrogen, or phosphorus in addition to the methane. These elements replace some carbon atoms on the diamond surface, creating a defect in the crystal. “This defect will allow the diamond to become a semiconductor,” Chicot says. “Otherwise, pure diamond is insulating.”
SiC? Wolfspeed promised a wafer fab in Germany and then walked it back I wonder why...
Makes sense. As we all know, it's one of the hardest metals known the man.
just call it carbon nigga
>>109671109Silicon is just much cheaper. It's literally everywhere. Makes no sense to use industrial diamonds. They really want everything to become more expensive.
>>109673991it's literal diamonds, tho. it's not coal or graphite
>>109671109I'm almost certain I heard this same story 20 years ago.
>>109676751This?https://www.technologyreview.com/2001/05/01/275707/diamond-chips/
>>109676770Possibly, yeah. I recall hearing the story paired with claims of really exaggerated clock rates, something like 80 GHz comes to mind. Really exaggerated at the time though, as I was probably still using a single core sub-1 GHz Pentium back then.
>>109671109>But semiconductors built on diamond outperform them all on all key metrics, developers sayThey outperform at a 1000x higher cost that also needs the whole R&D budget to catch up with silicon technologyAll the scientists can tell you how GaN is better, how SiC is better, how graphene and MoS2 are best semiconductors ever, hell, we can even do carbon nanotubes they are so much better than silicon...Then really kicks in. Just because you exfoliated somehow with a sticky tape an atomic layer of MoS2 from a crystal and put it on gold contacts in a lab, it doesn't mean you made a chip. You'll end up with infinite amount of issues that need to be solved before you can actually compete with silicon which was optimized for 50 years. Silicon just werks. And it also have best oxide when you grow it out of silicon and best contacts when you anneal it with nickel.How you gonna solve it with other materials?I'm currently working in field of 2D materials and various developers for example from imec also say how great they are and how roadmap is planning to replace all Si transistors with stacked MoS2 in the next 5-10 years and yet we are still stuck with silicon.
>>109677617>Then really kicks in.The reality is that silicon is at it's limits. Increasing costs is the only way forward. Diamond semiconductors are also used in quantum computers, which is one way of accelerating certain calculations.
>>109671109>are limited by intolerance to high temperaturesWhat? I'm pretty sure diamonds degrade at way lower temperatures than silicon. They're even flamable.
>>109677617>corpos invested a lot into silicon>researchers threaten them with silicon alternatives>surprised there's no movement
>>109677624Is this bait?
>>109677624The reality is that you can't just copy everything you done with silicon and decide to completely route to a different material. I worked with SiC and currently am with 2D materials and in both cases the main issues are processes and cost. And the cost not just to produce a chip but to develop it. And companies don't want to take a risk and dump gorillions into SiC, diamond, 2D, 1D, perovskite whatever. They want someone else to do it but there is no someone else
>>109677636>but there is no someone elseTSMC will do it eventually when China gets good at silicon.
I would only want chips made of real diamond, to be frank.
>>109677858Lab-grown diamonds are real diamonds. Don't let jewelry propoganda fool you.
>>109677875I was just joking. I'm sorry :(
>>109677636>They want someone else to do itInnovation paradox.
>>109671109no usecase, its not a conductorfake and gay title to impress boomers
>>109671109Bla bla bla. Until it's actually real, this is sci-fi.I remember watching videos about graphene processors or processors that use light rather than electricity and are supposedly millions of times faster - and also "right around the corner" - like 15 years ago.
>>109677914I'm sure they'd all be pointing a fire hose of money at it like they did back in the '80s if it was some sort of silver bullet but a ton of problems with modern chips stem from the metal layers, and changing the substrate isn't going to do jack about that.
>>109677972>processors that use light rather than electricityPhotonics are very alive and is in active development. AI craze even helped because photonics are very good at neural networks.
>>109677972Hail graphene!
