Fast forward: MIT's graphene microhip could operate at much higher speeds than today's silicon chips.
Credit: Donna Coveney
SYDNEY: With the use of a unique carbon material, researchers are hoping to significantly increase the speed of computers, mobile phones and other communication systems.
The technology could even have implications for how long Moore's Law – which has so far accurately predicted the doubling of the number of transistors on microchips every two years – will continue to apply.
The material, called graphene, consists of sheets of carbon just one atom thick. Its unusual properties make it a promising material for future microchips that could transmit data much faster than existing silicon chips.
Upping the frequency
"Graphene will play a key role in future electronics," said Tomás Palacios, an electrical engineer with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Boston, USA. "We just need to identify the right devices to take full advantage of its outstanding properties."
Palacios and his team have used graphene to build a chip known as a frequency multiplier. Frequency multipliers take an incoming electrical signal of a certain frequency and produce an output signal that is a multiple of that frequency.
The MIT graphene chip can double the frequency of an electromagnetic signal, showing the system is a viable way of generating high frequency signals. The next generation of graphene chips will be able to build upon this concept to achieve much higher frequencies, Palacios said.
Reaching higher frequencies is critical to faster computer systems, he said, because it allows data to be transmitted faster. With current technology, it is hard to create signals with frequencies above five gigahertz. Graphene could eventually lead to frequencies in the 500 to 1,000 gigahertz range.
Surpasses existing technology
Graphene holds such promise for increasing communication speed because of its unique electrical properties. It has, for example, very high mobility – the speed at which electrons start moving in the presence of an electric field. This quality is important to electronics, and graphene's mobility is 100 times that of silicon.
As a result, the graphene chip surpasses existing frequency multipliers in several key ways, the researchers said. Current systems require multiple components, consume large amounts of power and produce signals that require filtering.
The new graphene system has only a single transistor, works more efficiently and produces clean signals that don't need filtering. In short, Palacios said, the graphene system can multiply frequencies "with unprecedented levels of spectral purity and efficiency."
He presented the work at an American Physical Society meeting in March, and it will appear in the May issue of Electron Device Letters.
graphene chips
If graphene chips can be used to multiply frequencies, the cyborg link postulated by Stephen Hawking may be closer than even he believed. Let's say the chips and mini-micro transmitters can be used to amplify and carry brainwave frequencies. The next step would be computers that could be accessed mentally to operate equipment, perform medical operations, communicate with other humans and even, horror of horrors, guide and control intelligent weapons from remote positions.Let's hope we are looking at a future of new racial understanding, harmony and communication and not mental domination by government organisations.
Lionel Hurst, Brisbane