British "Nature" magazine published a new development in computational science on the 28th: ??the Massachusetts Institute of Technology team used more than 14,000 carbon nanotube transistors to create a 16-bit microprocessor and generated such a message. Its design and manufacturing methods overcome previous carbon nanotube-related challenges and will provide a high-performance alternative to silicon in advanced microelectronic devices.
The silicon transistors used in electronic devices are reaching a critical point and cannot be effectively expanded to advance electronics. Carbon nanotubes are a potential alternative material for the fabrication of high-performance devices. They are also known as bucky tubes. They are lightweight and have a special structure. They are composed of several layers of carbon atoms arranged in a hexagonal shape to dozens of layers. Coaxial tube. At present, carbon nanotubes have shown excellent mechanical and electrical properties, but their own defects and variability limit the application of these miniature carbon atom cylinders in large-scale systems.
This time, Massachusetts Institute of Technology scientist Max Schulak and colleagues designed and built a carbon nanotube microprocessor to solve such problems. They use a spalling process to prevent the carbon nanotubes from polymerizing together to prevent the transistor from functioning properly. In addition, the number of metal-type carbon nanotubes rather than semiconductor-type carbon nanotubes is reduced by a fine circuit design, and the presence of the latter does not affect the function of the circuit, thereby overcoming the problems associated with carbon nanotube impurities.
The research team named the microprocessor "RV16X-NANO" and successfully executed a program in the test to generate the message: "Hello, the world! I am RV16XNano, made of carbon nanotubes."
The researchers concluded that this study points to a promising direction for electronics beyond silicon, given that the microprocessor is designed and manufactured using industry standards.
It has long been predicted that the dominant position of silicon in the chip field may end in the hands of carbon nanotubes. Because the latter is smaller and more conductive than conventional transistors, it also supports fast switching, performance and energy performance are far better than traditional silicon materials. However, for many years, carbon nanotubes have not been able to go on the road of practical application. One of the reasons is that its growth mode is not willing to be “controlled by people”; the second is the problem of impurities, as long as there are a small amount of metallic carbon nanotubes, Will damage the performance of the entire processor. Now, although we know that the date of replacement of traditional silicon transistors with carbon nanotubes still needs to be calculated in 10 years, the most important step has already been taken, and the revolution brought to the chip field is just around the corner.