IBM's Graphene, Racetrack, Carbon Nanotube Technologies

Innovation is what keeps Moore's Law going and, so far, the semiconductor industry has done an admittedly amazing job to keep it alive. IBM just announced several developments at the IEEE International Electron Devices Meeting, which could support Moore's Law and support its legacy a bit further.

The company announced that it was able to manufacture racetrack memory, graphene-based circuits as well as carbon nanotube transistors on 200 mm wafers for the first time. Racetrack memory combines the capacity of hard drives and the durability and speed of solid state memory and was shown with read and write functionality. IBM said that racetrack memory could enable users to access massive amounts of data within a billionth of a second.

Also on display was the first graphene integrated circuit for wireless communications which can run up at speeds up to 5 GHz and an environment temperature of 200 degrees Celsius (392 degrees F). IBM said that it uses a new architecture that "flips the current graphene transistor structure on its head" and delivers a "high yield" on 200 mm wafers.

According to IBM, it also developed carbon nanotube transistors with sub-10 nm channel lengths, which are capable of outperforming equivalent silicon-based transistors. The company considers this achievement and its implications as "a significant breakthrough for future applications in computing technology."

"Today's breakthroughs challenge the status quo by exploring the boundaries of science and transforming that knowledge into information technology systems that could advance the power and capability of businesses worldwide," said T.C. Chen, vice president, Science and Technology, IBM Research. However, as you may have guessed, there was no information when those inventions will actually be able in products you can buy.