You may not remember this, but it was 2012 when the graphene craze started. A group of scientists experimented with unusual materials and possibilities on Friday, with some fun and crazy ideas. They decided to scratch the lead of a pencil to see what properties it found and they came across the silicon substitute.
We discovered many things, but we forgot
The first data discovered indicated that it was a amazing semiconductor material. Everything indicated that it could be the silicon replacement, a material used to make processors and other items. Gradually, new properties and abilities were detected, such as the ability to emit light or that well ordered, it could be as hard as steel.
All of this was inside a pencil, this tool that children use at school. a very plentiful and easy to get it was therefore a brutal alternative to silicon, which is abundant but hard to find. A decade later, we’re still using pencils, but no trace of graphene.
Great graphene problem is not to achieve it, the big problem it presented was the Treat it. You can get a kilo of graphene very easily, but it’s quite complicated to process and mold. are required slow and expensive processes making anything out of graphene, something that makes it unfeasible.
Above all, it is pointless to manufacture processors at the cost level. Manufacturing a silicon wafer is relatively simple and the following process is more or less the same. “Printing” a circuit onto a silicon wafer, while complex and requiring specialized machinery, is much simpler than doing the process in graphene and, of course, cheaper.
Although graphene has better apparent properties, these are diluted when you do the math. To give us an idea, an Intel Core i7 that costs around 350 dollars could cost between 10 and 25 times more if it is made of graphene. Of course, we are talking about really astronomical costs.
Very difficult to replace silicon
The reality is that, despite the great limitations of silicon, no material seems likely to replace it. As it is a cheap and easy to process material, the costs are significantly reduced. In addition, we have a great knowledge of this material, since we have been using it in computing for decades. It takes time to know graphene and know all that it offers us and how to deal with its problems.
We can’t rule out graphene coming back and becoming the king of the track, but it’s not easy. It will most likely be used for other purposes where less precision is required. Nor does it seem easy to replace the best semiconductor we know. Not only because of its properties, but also because it can be combined with other materials comfortably and safely.
Note that this is not the first material that wants to replace silicon without success. But, work continues to find an alternative to this material which is running out. It is not that its production is finished, what is running out, it is the capacity for miniaturization. There will come a time when physics will say that the transistor can no longer be reduced without electromigration.
