Stanford Graphene Research and Practical Applications Breakthrough

[patrickjp93]

http://www.extremetech.com/computing/208618-graphene-sheathed-copper-wires-could-dramatically-speed-future-processors-cut-power-consumption

 

http://phys.org/news/2014-05-physicists-unlimited-graphene.html

 

Stanford scientists have recently made note that in semiconductors, the copper wiring interconnects deep in the bowels of your chips are wrapped in a layer of Tantalum Nitride which serves 2 functions.

1) Ensure the copper does not flow where it is unwanted during the manufacturing process

2) Provide a support and cooling structure around the copper.

 

To put it simply, heat generated in any resistive circuit (anything that isn't a superconductor) is directly proportional to the current^2 * resistance of the circuit. The resistance of a wire is inversely proportional to its diameter. As wires get thinner, resistance grows, heat generation increases, and heat dissipation abilities are lost, hence the Tantalum Nitride layer. All the major semiconductor companies are having issues reducing the size of their metal layers because of these effects which also effect clock rate ceilings.

 

Stanford has found a way to use Graphene to replace this layer, and constructing the graphene sheaths is actually easy from a manufacturing standpoint compared to trying to produce uniform sheets of the stuff, and a perfect lattice isn't required. A single support layer of graphene would be 1/8 the thickness of Tantalum Nitride, but what wasn't covered in the ExtremeTech article is even more interesting. Graphene has a greater than ideal thermal dissipation property. Due to quantum mechanical effects beyond my education level in the field, graphene conducts heat better the longer the path between the source and drain becomes, a behavior contrary to every other material on earth (to my knowledge). In other words, the effort needed to keep a CPU or GPU cool may take a nose dive in the next five years.

 

Furthermore, because of this heat dissipation ability, we should see semiconductor companies being better able to shrink their metal layers again, meaning ever more transistors for you and me.

 

One last bit from the Extremetech article.

 

 

 

The second and arguably more important reason is that the graphene effectively acts as a secondary conduction path for the copper itself. Today, the effect is relatively modest — sheathing copper wires in graphene boosts speeds by 4-17% depending on the length of the wire. In future chips, however, the benefits could be more significant — wires might be up to 30% faster while still scaling to smaller sizes. Because wire delays have become one of the most significant performance limiters in modern semiconductor designs, increasing copper wire speeds could improve multiple aspects of chip design and power consumption.

[Sidiox]

Graphene sciences is going to be a field of its own.... That stuff behaves so differently then anything we know...

[Trik'Stari]

TL;DR : Graphene is magic

 

(for those who didn't want to read it)

[PortentousLad]

Ahh technology, the reason I haven't completely given up on humanity yet.