It is proved that nano carbons and nano tubes do conduct electricity....will it ever happen that silicon be replaced by these in the near future in the integration of micro chips...
Nanochips I figure you refer to, and yes it has happened, somewhat.
Design for MEMS and FE Amps are already realized (maybe not sold by our local chip manufacturer) and have shown strengths (and like anything else like weaknesses).
The cost of production vs. their benefit will determine when they will be all over your devices.
The truth is that this same relation is served better in the biosciences (I mean better served because of their lucrative rewards), and so we just might see their application more rapid there.
Companies are still squeezing juice out of the technology their R&D investments produced decades ago, using only different materials for higher frequencies and smaller critical dimensions (higher capacities). So, until a true nanorevolution comes about in the manufacturing side, we will still see micro taking home the bacon.
Certainly you will see the devices around you in the near future, it is just a mater of investments, which includes training, liquid capital, application development, and market trends. My MS was on Nanofabrication techniques and one thing my mentoring professor kept reminding me was that we need to find a way to do what we want smaller, cheaper, faster, and easier to do (and if at all possible with the same or similar tools we already know how to use well) so it can become self conflicting.
I participated in a conference were CNT's were implanted in a patient that suffered from tremors, and the conduction of these tubes allowed probing the electric misfires in the brain, and correction of these misfires as well. The videos were impressive to say the least.
Silicon will not likely be replaced, but better placed really.
Other similar materials have already displaced Si chips from their throne, like for high frequency applications (GaAs for example).
Silicon being the most abundant and semiconductive (being possible to dope) already has the head start, but for selective applications (of specific duty) certain materials would be best suited, or are already.
BTW - transistors based on semiconduction are already at their fundamental limits for design, while magnetism would be the future (as most would see it) for higher data densities (we are not near the limits of their fundamental principles - we do not understand the principles in most cases at the nanolevel). You might want to take a look at IBM's take over of Infineon (they claim to have MRAM technology - they still use a capacitance in their circuitry to hold the value of 0 and 1, while MRAM ideally would only be magnetism).
We got miles to ride with Si, but why not?
I live in Miami, and I would describe it as still having the older yacht to get your speeding waverunner to the beautiful beaches you really want to use it in. You would not consider doing away with your yacht for the sake of riding your waverunner if it meant you had to ride it through the oily bay, nasty waters, and have it carry you for countless hours out to the beautiful waters you really want to sport it in, would you?
I hope others from the manufacturing side of this industry chime in. I am always interested in their perspective (it keeps me grounded).
Within the last couple of days, I read that they have made working carbon transistors. It was just a quick scan of the news so I didn't get into the details. What they are doing might be as primative as 1947, but it is certainly feasible... and considering how we have once gone through silicon, Carbon might be much faster to develop to ICs... etc.
SWNTs come in three flavors, Depending on the atomic orientation, as does graphite.
Electrical conductor, semi conductor and insulator. I have read the conductor is much better than copper, as for the rest only how it was described.
The problem is know one has figured out how to grow for only one property.
A batch produces all three. They have been able to vary the percentages some what but unless it was published in the last 30 days or I missed it, that is the major issue.
As I understand the issue a molecule of graphite (a flat sheet) conducts differently on each of its 3 axis of bonds. A SWNT is a tube of the same bonds so it has the same properties.
Once the fabrication and production issues are overcome many changes will happen to chip production.
Brad
__________________
(Larrabee's Law) Half of everything you hear in a classroom is crap. Education is figuring out which half is which.
Nano Carbons and Nano Tubes
Re: Nano Carbons and Nano Tubes
