Tag: germanium

Germanium displaces silicon

Posted on December 10, 2014 by - News

This graphic depicts a new electronic device created at Purdue that uses germanium as the semiconductor instead of silicon. Germanium is one material being considered to replace silicon in future chips because it could enable the industry to make smaller transistors and more compact integrated circuits. (Purdue University image) Chips today use complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) based on purified silicon substrates to do their magic work.

But scientists at Purdue University claim to have created the first modern germanium circuit that cuts silicon out of the equation.

The first transistor, created by Bell Labs, used purified germanium cooked up in the Purdue labs in 1947.  That was superseded by silicon but as devices get tinier and tinier, silicon is reaching the end of its long innings, according to Peide Ye, a professor at Purdue.

He said: “The industry will soon reach the limit as to how small silicon transistors can be made, threatening future advances.  Germanium is one material being considered to replace silicon because it could let the industry make smaller transistors and more compact integrated circuits.”

Ye said germanium has other advances over silicon, including the ability to make superfast circuits.

Ye didn’t talk about the price of germanium. Chips made by giants like Intel use purified silicon but ultimately based on sand. And sand is cheap.

We’re all running out of juice!

Posted on October 8, 2014 by - News

alkaline batteryAs we’re soon going to be swamped by even more smartphones, tablets, wearable devices and notebooks there’s an urgent need for better battery technologies real soon now.

That’s according to ABI Research which said that by 2019 there will be eight billion devices on the planet – a billion more than there are people right now.

If you’ve got a smartphone, you probably realise that the smarter they get the more electricity they take and that trend is going nowhere but upwards over the next few years.

ABI Research points out that the holy grail doesn’t lie with lithium and graphite batteries, nor with micro USB chargers.  But it claims that silicon anode batteries from the likes of Leyden Energy and Amprius, as well as germanium based devices may hold out hope for the charging nightmare we even now face, in 2014.

“The opportunity is enormous,” said Nick Spencer, a senior director at ABI Research. “The average advanced market home has over 10 untethered devices with rechargeable batteries today.” Spencer reckons that if wearables take off, along with electric cars and the internet of things, the demand will be even greater.

But, thinks TechEye, we’ve been promised better battery technology for years and thus far no-one has picked up that particular baton. So let’s see how it all pans out.