Engineers build advanced microprocessor out of carbon nanotubes

https://phys.org/news/2019-08-advanced-microprocessor-carbon-nanotubes.html

by lelf • 7 years ago

66 12 7 years ago

hkmurakami• 7 years ago

As with anything nanotubes, scalability and yield are the bottleneck and have been for the last ~20 years. Not sure we've made much progress in the 10 years since I was a great student in the field?

ridruejo• 7 years ago

The article points out different ways yield is increased to get to a practical level

crakenzak• 7 years ago

The great thing about research and development like this is by designing practical use cases for carbon nanotubes, its far more likely for large companies (eg TSMC, Samsung, Intel) to pick up and invest large amounts of R&D money to improve yield/production of carbon nanotubes, benefiting everyone involved.

Reminds me of how large phone/computer makers like Apple, Samsung and Huawei help foot the cost of R&D for so many innovations in the tech field (expensive die shrinks, display technology) which ends up trickling to nearly every industry.

incompatible• 7 years ago

Already discussed at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20823339

Ice_cream_suit2• 7 years ago

Just remember carbon nanotubes are highly carcinogenic.

ganzuul• 7 years ago

Is breaking open processors and inhaling the dust a common occurrence where you live?

Ice_cream_suit2• 7 years ago

Although that sounds like fun (for certain values of fun), the issue would exposure during fabrication and possibly during destruction of nano tube containing equipment.

true_tuna• 7 years ago

I’ve worked in data centers. The constant air circulation causes dust to accumulate in visible places. I assure you, computers are not as sealed up and tidy as you’d think. We used to jokingly call the hard, thick, black dust “cancer”. It’s hard to know what’s in it without study, but when you manufacture something with dangerous materials some amount of that material makes it onto and into the finished product. I’m not advocating for alarm, but your po-pi-ing comment was designed to minimize and it demands counterpoint.

Engineers build advanced microprocessor out of carbon nanotubes

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