Transistors are the basic building blocks of computer chips. Theyre essentially things which can be ‘on’ or ‘off’.
The traditional transistors use something called a p-n junction. To make one of these, we need to carefully implant impurity atoms into silicon in a very specific concentration gradient.
When transistors get very small, it becomes extremely difficult to make this concentration gradient just right. Which is a limits how small the p-n junction can be.
The new gate-all-around transistors are shaped completely different, and are more like 3D structures than 2D patterns. And, crucially, they dont require p-n junctions. Which means we’re not limited by how small we can make concentration gradients, but instead by how small we can make these structures. Which is a lot smaller.
The fact that China is getting better at this means that high-performance computer chips may get cheaper as production wont be dominated by TSMC/ASML.
Transistors are the basic building blocks of computer chips. Theyre essentially things which can be ‘on’ or ‘off’.
The traditional transistors use something called a p-n junction. To make one of these, we need to carefully implant impurity atoms into silicon in a very specific concentration gradient.
When transistors get very small, it becomes extremely difficult to make this concentration gradient just right. Which is a limits how small the p-n junction can be.
The new gate-all-around transistors are shaped completely different, and are more like 3D structures than 2D patterns. And, crucially, they dont require p-n junctions. Which means we’re not limited by how small we can make concentration gradients, but instead by how small we can make these structures. Which is a lot smaller.
The fact that China is getting better at this means that high-performance computer chips may get cheaper as production wont be dominated by TSMC/ASML.