Scientists Pave Way to Dissipationless Semiconductors

[Guest]

Researchers at RIKEN and the University of Tokyo claim that the there may be a way to build semiconductors that do not leak any power at all.

Scientists Pave Way to Dissipationless Semiconductors : Read more

 

[master_chen]

Ultra-small "gravity well"? That's just like...

 

[ricardok]

The transistors only work in "cryogenic" conditions

Err.. Isn't that a superconductor??

 

[face-plants]

Same problem as the super-conducting materials that have shown so many amazing abilities. They can conduct electricity with ZERO resistance, levitate objects indefinitely, and even repel sharks! Now they have to figure out ways to make these materials work without having to bathe them in liquid nitrogen.

 

[zeratul600]

why will i bother if something generates heat or not if it is already near the absolute zero xDXDXD it will be cold anyway! LoL im such and ignorant bastard

 

[alidan]

[citation][nom]ricardok[/nom]Err.. Isn't that a superconductor??[/citation]
its different, at least from what i remember... cryogenic is cold, but for super conductors, they use liquid helium... or i'm thinking of something else.... which i may be.

 

[majudhu]

same as ^^^

 

[Verrin]

I think heat has a separate cause than electron leakage. From the looks of it, this has a greater impact on power efficiency and usage.

 

[s3anister]

[citation][nom]alidan[/nom]its different, at least from what i remember... cryogenic is cold, but for super conductors, they use liquid helium... or i'm thinking of something else.... which i may be.[/citation]
Yes this is more or less correct. However, to get specific the point where most scientists agree cryogenics begins and refrigeration ends is at 123 K. Without more information it can be assumed that "cryogenic conditions" in this case means anything below ~123 K. As for superconducting materials, most of them super-conduct below 50 K and require use of liquid neon, liquid hydrogen, or liquid helium.

 

[Draven35]

some materials superconduct at the temperatures of liquid nitrogen, those are the materials more commonly used.

 

[goldenthunder]

To answer some of the above questions:
Leakage current is one of the major show-stoppers when it comes to further reducing the size of a transistor as it destroys the properties of a semiconductor (it behaves like a conductor). Heat is simply created by the resistance of the circuit. Imagine electrons (electric current) hitting other electrons (in the material) and speeding them up -> heat.

So an ideal semiconductor would be superconductive (no loss due to resistance) and have no leakage current. Usually those two don't go well together: superconductive == loss free movement of charge carriers, no leakage current = perfect control of said charge carriers. In addition most superconductive materials fail in high magnetic fields.

For more information ask the internet

 

[ojas]

[citation][nom]face-plants[/nom]Same problem as the super-conducting materials that have shown so many amazing abilities. They can conduct electricity with ZERO resistance, levitate objects indefinitely, and even repel sharks! Now they have to figure out ways to make these materials work without having to bathe them in liquid nitrogen.[/citation]
Well, i'm sure they can do that with bulldozer chips. I mean, you have to bathe them in liquid nitrogen anyway to OC.


I'm just trolling a bit, don't kill me.

 

[ojas]

Though this article is a bit messed up. I mean, if you read the title, you'd think that these semiconductors don't dissipate heat, but then in the article there's something about containing current leakage. I don't think the two are interchangeable.

 

[TeraMedia]

A friend and I baked some YCBO superconductors back in college. They superconducted just fine in a liquid N environment. Levitated magnets pretty well too, because as a magnet approaches the surface of the superC, the changing B (magnetic) field induces a circular current. That current in turn creates an opposing B field that pushes back on the magnet. Very cool to actually watch it happen (I know... taking geek to the next level)!

The heat from CPUs comes from current traveling through a resistance. Plain-and-simple. That resistance is in the wire traces, poly-Si traces / gates, and transistor channels on the chip. The highest resistance is in the channels (especially the p-transistor channels), then the poly-Si, then the metal traces. The current that travels through the resistance is either switching current or leakage current. These guys are proposing to reduce the leakage current, but that still won't solve the problem of switching current, which is tied to V^2, C, F, and a couple of other factors that depend on the nature and purpose of the IC. To solve heat-induced switching current, you need to replace the Poly-Si and channel materials with lower-resistance materials that will also enable you to lower V, or else you need to make C lower by generally making everything smaller. Only so far you can take that with Silicon.

 

[classzero]

[citation][nom]s3anister[/nom]Yes this is more or less correct. However, to get specific the point where most scientists agree cryogenics begins and refrigeration ends is at 123 K. Without more information it can be assumed that "cryogenic conditions" in this case means anything below ~123 K. As for superconducting materials, most of them super-conduct below 50 K and require use of liquid neon, liquid hydrogen, or liquid helium.[/citation]
Show off

 

[mamailo]

They are not using superconductors or any conductor at all.
They are CHANNELING electrons.The breakthrough is than instead of using giant magnets to avoid dispersion;they use quantum hall effect.