- Some organizations and companies in China have discussed about investing in manufacturing graphane-based chips.
- Graphene has so great conductivity that graphene-based transistors have the potential of running at 1,000 GHz frequency.
- Many companies and organizations around the world already working on it. However, mass-producing it at a low cost is a big problem.
Many years ago graphene was introduced as a wonder material that will start a new age in the electronics industry. Graphene is a single layer of carbon atoms that are placed as hexagons. It is an incredibly hard material, approximately 200x harder than steel, which makes it also useful for many other purposes.
Transistors running at 1,000 GHz
Graphene is 200x harder than steel and graphene-based transistors can reach 1,000 GHz frequency
Graphene has great conductivity; it converts so little energy to heat, it can reach unbelievably high frequencies when they are used in transistors. IBM managed to push up to 100 GHz twelve years ago and stated that they might be able to push up to 1000 GHz. For comparison, today’s highest-end silicon-based chips can only go up to 5 to 6 GHz.
During China International Graphene Innovation Conference, many companies and institutions from the country discussed investing in and utilizing graphene-based chips. Doing so might bring China to a great position in technological advancements. However, while the material itself is very easy to be found, the biggest obstacle to this technological advancement is the difficulty of mass-manufacturing graphene.