07-11-2009, 04:05 PM
INTRODUCTION
Electronics without silicon is unbelievable, but it will come true with the evolution of Diamond or Carbon chip. Now a day we are using silicon for the manufacturing of Electronic Chip's. It has many disadvantages when it is used in power electronic applications, such as bulk in size, slow operating speed etc. Carbon, Silicon and Germanium are belonging to the same group in the periodic table. They have four valance electrons in their outer shell. Pure Silicon and Germanium are semiconductors in normal temperature. So in the earlier days they are used widely for the manufacturing of electronic components. But later it is found that Germanium has many disadvantages compared to silicon, such as large reverse current, less stability towards temperature etc so in the industry focused in developing electronic components using silicon wafers
Now research people found that Carbon is more advantages than Silicon. By using carbon as the manufacturing material, we can achieve smaller, faster and stronger chips. They are succeeded in making smaller prototypes of Carbon chip. They invented a major component using carbon that is "CARBON NANOTUBE", which is widely used in most modern microprocessors and it will be a major component in the coming era
Crystalline diamond film that could produce more resilient semiconductor chips than those made from silicon. Until now, synthetic diamonds have proved a poor semiconducting material. Their microscopic crystals are a disorderly hodgepodge, and their edges are not evenly aligned, impeding the flow of current. Now, Schreck and his colleagues have discovered that by growing the diamond film on a surface of iridium, instead of on silicon, they can keep its grain boundaries aligned. Adding atoms of boron or nitrogen enables the diamond film to conduct electricity. Manufacturers plan to build a diamond chip that can withstand temperatures of 500 C, compared to only about 150 C for silicon chips. The chips would be most useful in devices located near hot-burning engines, such as those used in automobiles or airplanes
WHAT IS IT?
In single definition, Diamond Chip or carbon Chip is an electronic chip manufactured on a Diamond structural Carbon wafer. OR it can be also defined as the electronic component manufactured using carbon as the wafer. The major component using carbon is (cnt) Carbon Nanotube. Carbon Nanotube is a nano dimensional made by using carbon. It has many unique properties.
HOW IS IT POSSIBLE?
Pure Diamond structural carbon is non-conducting in nature. In order to make it conducting we have to perform doping process. We are using Boron as the p-type doping Agent and the Nitrogen as the n-type doping agent. The doping process is similar to that in the case of Silicon chip manufacturing. But this process will take more time compared with that of silicon because it is very difficult to diffuse through strongly bonded diamond structure. CNT (Carbon Nanotube) is already a semi conductor.
ADVANTAGES OF DIAMOND CHIP
1 SMALLER COMPONENTS ARE POSSIBLE
As the size of the carbon atom is small compared with that of silicon atom, it is possible to etch very smaller lines through diamond structural carbon. We can realize a transistor whose size is one in hundredth of silicon transistor.
2 IT WORKS AT HIGHER TEMPERATURE
Diamond is very strongly bonded material. It can withstand higher temperatures compared with that of silicon. At very high temperature, crystal structure of the silicon will collapse. But diamond chip can function well in these elevated temperatures. Diamond is very good conductor of heat. So if there is any heat dissipation inside the chip, heat will very quickly transferred to the heat sink or other cooling mechanics.
3 FASTER THAN SILICON CHIP
Carbon chip works faster than silicon chip. Mobility of the electrons inside the doped diamond structural carbon is higher than that of in he silicon structure. As the size of the silicon is higher than that of carbon, the chance of collision of electrons with larger silicon atoms increases. But the carbon atom size is small, so the chance of collision decreases. So the mobility of the charge carriers is higher in doped diamond structural carbon compared with that of silicon.
4 LARGER POWER HANDLING CAPACITY
For power electronics application silicon is used, but it has many disadvantages such as bulk in size, slow operating speed, less efficiency, lower band gap etc at very high voltages silicon structure will collapse. Diamond has a strongly bonded crystal structure. So carbon chip can work under high power environment. It is assumed that a carbon transistor will deliver one watt of power at rate of 100 GHZ. Now days in all power electronic circuits, we are using certain circuits like relays, or MOSFET inter connection circuits (inverter circuits) for the purpose of interconnecting a low power control circuit with a high power circuit .If we are using carbon chip this inter phase is not needed. We can connect high power circuit direct to the diamond chip
