Intel Abandoning Silicon With 7nm and Beyond – Silicon Alternatives Coming By 2020
2 years ago by Khalid Moammer
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Intel revealed that the end of the road for Silicon is nearing as alternative materials will be required for the 7nm node and beyond. This is perhaps one of the more interesting stories that came out of this year’s international solid state conference.
It has been well known that Silicon is running out of steam but it was previously believed that Silicon would make it at least to 7nm. Intel however believes that Silicon alternatives will be required for the 7nm process and beyond.
Intel Abandoning Silicon With 7nm and Beyond – Silicon Alternatives Coming By 2020
Moore’s law which is the observation that transistor density doubles every year, later amended to every couple of years, has slowed down dramatically in the past few years. Scaling Silicon transistors down has become increasingly difficult and expensive and at around 7nm it will prove to be downright impossible.
Digital computing which is what the entire world has relied on for the past several decades is based on one basic concept, on or off. The zeroes and ones in binary simply indicate if a signal is present or not. The fundamental flaw with Silicon transistors is that at the 7nm point the transistors sit so close to each other that an effect called quantum tunneling occurs. This effect unfortunately means that the transistor cannot reliably be turned off and for the most part will stay on.