Carbon Transistors Promise More Speed and RAM Capacity

If claims made by scientists at Tel Aviv University (TAU) are to be believed, the transistors consisting of C60 molecules (the name is derived from a 60 carbon atom structure) can be built in a smaller sizes and could operate much more efficiently.

Elad Mentovich from TAU found that other than silicon transistors, his C60 transistors can both store and transfer energy and do not need the capacitor that is required for a silicon transistor. The result would be more room for transistors and reduced energy consumption. According to Mentovich, the carbon transistors could be built as small as 1 nm and manufactured on today's manufacturing equipment.

"When this new technology is integrated into future devices, you will have much more memory on your smartphones and tablets, approaching the level of a laptop," Mentovich said. "With that kind of memory, you'll be able to run applications simultaneously, and because it is low voltage, power consumption will fall and battery life will be longer." There was no information on the potential performance of the C60 transistors.

The next phase of the research is to find a production fab that will actually produce the transistors.