Blog: Silicon Replacement: Gallium Arsenide?

Silicon Replacement: Gallium Arsenide?
PC World (05/23/10) Mulroy, James

Gallium arsenide (GaAs) could be used to develop electronic devices that are more efficient and less expensive than those run on chips made from silicon wafers. Researchers studying GaAs have developed a new process for producing chips made from the expensive but efficient semiconductor. The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign's John Rogers says stacks of thin films of semiconductor are grown onto a wafer, and then each individual film is removed one by one and placed onto a cheaper substrate or base to support the ultra-thin film. The technique eliminates the excess material thickness for larger diameter wafers, making them less expensive and more efficient. The Illinois team used the process to "build devices--including transistors, solar cells, and infrared cameras--on the substrates, leaving the wafer intact and ready for a new batch of film," Rogers says. The researchers say that using the technique to manufacture computer chips would result in faster and less expensive computers.

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