Carbon nanotube transistors
Carbon nanotubes are sheets of carbon atoms rolled into tubes. Used in place of silicon as the switching part of a transistor, they could make chips faster and less power-hungry. In 2019 MIT researchers built a working 16-bit microprocessor from them.
Smithsonian Magazine, Aug 2019How far from your life: Still years away; many prototypes stall here.
Independently sourcedFrom lab to your life
Why it’s on step 2
- 1Lab discovery
- 2Working prototype
- 3Real-world testing
- 4Approved or on sale
- 5Everyday life
The rule
Works beyond the first experiment: tested in animals, built as a device prototype, or made on a pilot production line.
- MIT and SkyWater Technology Foundry showed the first wafer of 3D chips combining carbon nanotube transistors and memory made in a commercial US foundry, under a DARPA program. IEEE Spectrum, 19 July 2019
The short version
What you need to know
- Why it matters
By one estimate, a nanotube processor could run three times faster than today's chips on about a third of the energy.
Smithsonian Magazine, Aug 2019- Is it really nano?
Truly nano
The switching part of each transistor is made of carbon nanotubes.
Smithsonian Magazine, Aug 2019- Who’s behind it
MIT (Max Shulaker's group) with SkyWater Technology Foundry, funded by DARPA
On the record
Every step, dated
Newest first. Company-reported means the only source so far is the company itself.
- Published research
MIT researchers reported in Nature a 16-bit microprocessor built from carbon nanotube transistors.
Smithsonian Magazine, Aug 2019 - Pilot production
MIT and SkyWater Technology Foundry showed the first wafer of 3D chips combining carbon nanotube transistors and memory made in a commercial US foundry, under a DARPA program.
IEEE Spectrum, 19 July 2019
What's been promised
Promises, with dates
Dated targets someone set in public. We mark them met or missed only when a source shows it.
Max Shulaker, MITSaid Aug 2019
Commercial carbon nanotube microprocessors could be available in less than five years.
Smithsonian Magazine, Aug 2019Within five yearsTarget date passed
In their words
What experts say
This work takes a big step forward and gets much closer to a commercial chip.
Smithsonian Magazine, Aug 2019
Who makes it
The companies
- SKYTNasdaqSkyWater Technology
A US chip foundry that in 2019, with MIT, made the first monolithic 3D chips built in a foundry, using carbon nanotube transistors.
We track:Nanotube chips
Sources
Where every line comes from
Each source with the passage, word for word, that backs what we wrote.
- Smithsonian Magazine, Aug 2019
made of carbon nanotubes, which are made of graphene cylinders, they report in the journal Nature.
- IEEE Spectrum, 19 July 2019
it’s the first monolithic 3D IC ever fabricated within a foundry
More in Chips and computing
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- Nanoimprint lithography for chipsStep 4 · On saleInstead of projecting a circuit pattern with light, nanoimprint lithography presses a mask carrying the pattern into a coating on the wafer, like a stamp.
- Atom-thin 2D semiconductor chipsStep 1 · LabSome materials can be made just a few atoms thick, like sheets of molybdenum disulfide (MoS2).