Researchers announce a new semiconductor much better than silicon

For those who do not know, all the development of electronics in the last 70 years has been carried out on silicon, which is the material with which processor chips are manufactured.

Silicon is a very abundant material in nature, but to be used as a base substrate for electronic circuits, it must be purified to a very high level. Purities of 99.99999999% are used and that took a few years to achieve. But now it is a controlled and highly evolved technology.

In the search for new materials, researchers at MIT and other institutions have discovered a new one that has better semiconducting properties than silicon. It is cubic boron arsenide which has the particularity of providing high mobility to both electrons and holes (negative and positive charges), while also offering very good thermal dissipation.

Said like this, it seems like a panacea, since it allows the current to be easily conducted in both directions, and it also dissipates heat very well. Something that silicon does not do.

Silicon transmits electrons well, but not holes, and it does not dissipate heat well. That is why electronic circuits get hot and need the use of heat sinks to remove part of the heat generated in their operation.

This new material that they have discovered may represent a huge advance in the world of electronics, but all its characteristics have yet to be verified.

To begin with, until now only tests have been carried out with small amounts of material, and processes must be generated that allow material to be obtained industrially, and also that this material has the adequate purity to be used in an adequate manner, and the cost of all of it. And that may still take a few years.

It is also necessary to characterize its operation precisely, knowing how electrons and holes circulate, how it dissipates heat, stability over time after operating for months and years, etc...

There is still a lot of work to be done to find out if an alternative material to silicon could be made available. But it is very good news, because in principle the material offers unbeatable characteristics to one day replace silicon.

Time will tell.