Sillicon may get replaced for indium-gallium-arsenide in chips

[vickybat]

3D III-V Transistors Could Enable Lighter Notebooks

Yup guys, scientists say indium-gallium-arsenide has superior electron flow resulting in smaller and efficient chips. Read the link for more detail.

[Sam]

but when wil this be applied? 16nm node or 11nm?

[Jaskanwar Singh]

nice info, batman.

[Liverpool_fan]

Arsenide? Prepare for even worse consequences regarding e-waste.

[ico]

Can't see this happening on a major scale. Silicon is the 2nd most abundant element in the Earth's crust.

We'd need other viable alternatives or advancements.

[AcceleratorX]

Superior electron flow would only matter when leakage currents and heat issues are significant. What the scientists are actually getting is that they created a nanostructure engineered for better electron flow.

Note that "better" here means unobstructed by physical barriers like a molecule blocking the path and the like. The most significant effect of this is less heat generation.

[Cyrus_the_virus]

A big no to Arsenide!

[Sarath]

Silicon is found in sand. Where is this trio available? I don't see it being economical. :/

[Kola2842]

What about availability??

[dashing.sujay]

Originally Posted by Wikipedia

GaAs is so high that a corresponding layer would be only a few micrometers thick and mechanically unstable.
Silicon is a pure element, avoiding the problems of stoichiometric imbalance and thermal unmixing of GaAs.
Silicon has a nearly perfect lattice, impurity density is very low and allows to build very small structures (currently down to 25 nm). GaAs in contrast has a very high impurity density, which makes it difficult to build ICs with small structures, so the 500 nm process is a common process for GaAs.

Originally Posted by Wikipedia

Due to its arsenic content, it is considered highly toxic and carcinogenic

And yeah, availability will be an issue, making it more expensive; but lets hope its other features may balance the pricing but still not as Si IMO.