Diamond Chips

MAY 2001 BY TECHNOLOGY REVIEW

Scientists have developed a crystalline diamond film that could produce more resilient semiconductor chips than those made from silicon.
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Silicon Valley may soon have to change its name. A team of scientists led by Matthias Schreck of the University of Augsburg in Germany has developed a 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.

Silicon chips have reached the limit of their capacity to act as a semi-conductor of electricity. "Silicon Chips" according to MIT Professor of material science, Dr. Wuensch states" Will melt into a puddle" at this rate and diamond is the solution to that problem. A modern computer system in the office will generate heat at [100] degrees celsius, enough to heat a small office on a cold day. This has prompted scientist to discover a replacement material that can handle more electricity with greater conductivity without over heating. This quest set off a world-wide race to take control of the computer and synthetic diamond industry. The initial players in this quest are De Beers who controls the most productive and valuable diamond mines on earth located in Botswana S. Africa. And Apollo Diamond who produce synthetic laboratory created diamonds in United States Apollo is owned by a first rate scientist whose dream was to create a better computer power chip..He knew that the ultimate conductor is the diamond itself. Diamond can conduct more electricity without over heating than any material on earth.. He also knew that even the world's best De Beer mine diamonds do not have consistent properties that you can depend on to make computer chips.

Synthetic laboratory created diamonds held the key. A new technology was created called "Chemical Vapor Deposition." This Apollo advanced [CVD] application grew diamond crystals of highest purity without metallic inclusions. These new "Hybrid Synthetic" lab created diamonds were uncovered and reported to De Beers "Diamond Trading Company." This set off a series of events that compelled the De Beers group to start scientific research of their own. It was a two-fold attack on the [CVD] chemical vapor deposition industry. One was to develop diamond scanning equipment to detect a synthetic diamond entering the market place. De Beers being most resourceful did just that. He launched a "Gem Defensive Program" and developed two state of the art diamond testing machines called, "Diamond Sure and Diamond View." Events are unfolding and America's largest diamond testing facility, the "Gemological Institute of America has become aware of the Apollo Diamond as a possible threat to the entire natural diamond industry. We should take pause at the magnitude of the economic power sectors at play. We are talking about "Multi-Billion" dollars industries that effect change on a global level. The [GIA] used their lab diamond testing "Spectroscope," which was state of the art at the time. The began testing the new synthetic stones, one by one. And after each test they discovered the Apollo synthetic lab created diamonds had no visible color spectra or absorption. It passed the natural diamond test! But testing was not over yet. The DeBeers "Gem Defense Program" had applied and was given permission by the [GIA] to also test the new synthetic diamonds with their next generation of "Diamond View and Diamond Sure" testing equipment. These instruments use a new diamond testing technology called "Fourier-Transform Infrared Spectroscopy" [FTIR]. A system that can detect hydrogen related centers that have never be observed in natural diamonds. De Beers did detect [6200-6400] centimeter of hydrogen which is used to make Apollo synthetic lab created diamonds. De Beers was successful at detecting synthetic lab created diamonds. The diamond industry felt relief that the market price would remain stable. But this was a meaningless exercise. Apollo was only interested in selling gem quality diamonds to fund his diamond computer chip program. His goal from the beginning was to create a " Better Computer Chip." They spent a decade trying to find the "Sweet Spot" where he can duplicate his scientific chemical vapor deposition experiment and reproduce an exact synthetic lab created diamond. After countless years of trial and error, Apollo Diamond pain stakingly persevered and finally found the "Sweet Spot" and was awarded a patent for his efforts. De Beers was also a very creative and industrious individual. Being a man of action and with inexhaustible wealth, set out to develop his own synthetic diamond. He also new the diamond testing machines were only his first plan of attack. His second was in motion.

He purchased his own "World Class" laboratory to create synthetic diamonds for computer chips. His facility was named " Element Six." De Beers a privately held company called "Diamond Trading Company" has a very large agenda. He currently owns the largest single stock pile of high end diamonds on earth. He has accumulated this treasure over his [100] year mining history in Africa. His power allows him to manipulate world price on high end diamonds through Antwerp Belgium. His next goal is to create the first "Diamond Computer Chip" and control the world market and computer industry. If ever a man exist who could do this it would be DeBeers. The rest of the world is now waking up to the colossal economic stakes. Now Europe and Japan have begun scientific endeavor toward the quest of creating the first synthetic lab created diamond computer chip. But Intel, the largest silicon chip producer in the United States is apparently indifferent to it all. The comment by Soumyanath, Intel's director of communication circuits research,"It takes about ten years to evaluate a new material, we have a lot invested in silicon and we're not about to abandon that." Unless Intel has revised it's position, the torch is in the hands of Apollo Diamond and DeBeers Element Six synthetic laboratories. Apollo wasn't asleep at the wheel while all of this was going on. He continued his research after being granted a patent. His next scientific break-through was in collaboraton with French and Israel scientist. They together discovered how to produce a [CVD] snythetic lab created diamond with a positive and negative charge. The process was called "Boron-Doped N Type." Apollo injected boron mineral with a [P-N] positive and negative charge, into the diamond crystal lattice. Resulting in the first diamond on earth with the capacity to hold a charge and conduct electricity without over heating. The race is on. MediaRoom Free Public Education Series One of the more intriguing prospects in the semiconductor world is diamond. Diamond has many properties that are superior to silicon. Diamond has a higher bandgap than silicon, can tolerate higher temperatures, and has the potential to form transistors that switch faster than silicon. Ralph Merkle notes that: Diamond excels in its electronic properties. Fundamentally, it lets us move charge around much faster before things stop working. [snip] diamond transistors can operate at much higher temperatures because diamond has a larger bandgap than other materials (particularly silicon) [snip] Because diamond has a wider bandgap, it shorts out at a proportionally higher temperature than silicon. Diamond also has greater thermal conductivity, which lets us move heat out of a diamond transistor more quickly to prevent it from getting too hot. [snip] Finally, electrons (and holes) move with different speeds through different materials,

even when the electric field is the same. Again, electrons and holes in diamond move faster than in silicon. Because diamond transistors can be hotter, are more easily cooled, can tolerate higher voltages before breaking down, and electrons move more easily in them; they make better transistors than other materials. Diamond would be ideal for electronic devices if only we could manufacture it inexpensively and with precisely the desired structure. Merkle's arguments are supported by the fact that the Japanese Government wants to create diamond-based microchips. The government-industry venture will endeavor to create power electronics and flat-panel displays using diamond transistors. If this project is to succeed, the researchers will need to find a way to inexpensively mass-produce diamond wafers, and also discover a means to effectively dope diamond substrates.

New computer chip technology could fill production gap

omputer chips are the raw material of the Cyber Age.

As computer developers come up with machines that process more and more data faster and faster, they push the chip manufacturers closer to the limits of their production technologies. Researchers at ORNL are developing a method of packing more circuitry into a smaller space on these silicon wafers. Referred to as 100-nanometer lithography, the term reflects the feature resolution required to pack extremely tiny circuits directly onto the microchip wafers. Recent improvements in optical lithography, however, have pushed the requirements for next-generation lithography closer to 70- or 50-nanometer feature size. The ORNL method may be the technology leap the industry requires for that kind of resolution. Because it uses electron beams to "write" the circuits onto the chips, next-generation lithography is about as fundamentally different from current processes as digital is from analog technology. "Chip densitytransistors per square centimeterdoubles about every two years," says Tommy Thomas, the Instrumentation and Controls Division researcher who is leading the electron-beam lithography project. "The speed

In the addressable field emitter array concept, electron beams from amorphous diamond cathodes "write" circuit patterns onto a computer chip wafer. The technology could help chip makers attain the degrees of chip density that designers are approaching.

of microprocessors doubles about every 18 months. The technology for manufacturing chips to handle that kind of development is becoming strained." Thomas explains that, to make a chip wafer, manufacturers currently make a chrome-onglass mask that is four times the size of the chip they want. Lasers are used to illuminate the mask, and the circuit pattern is focused on a photoresist-covered wafer. When light hits it, it releases an electron, and the image is then etched into a circuit. "The idea comes from photolithography, but as you miniaturize and stack layers, it becomes very complicated," Thomas says. "When you get to a certain point, the lasers can't be focused any smaller." Thomas and a host of Lab researchers began to ponder new chip-making technologies after David Rasmussen of the Fusion Energy Division, who was on assignment to the SEMATECH consortium, suggested looking into 100-nanometer lithography. The current state of the art is 200 nanometers. Incidentally, a nanometer is one billionth of a meter. "We initially considered electron holography, but Edgar Voelkl in the Metals and Ceramics Division suggested simply focusing electrons," Thomas says. "We came up with the idea of programming millions of computer-controlled nano-scale cathodes to emit electrons and using a magnetic lens to focus the electron beams onto a silicon wafer. Each beam spot would fill about 20 to 40 nanometers." The key to the technology is the amorphous diamond emitter, which is what Thomas calls an electromagnetic cathode coated with amorphous diamond. Amorphous diamond lacks hydrogen, which makes it harder. Multitudes of amorphous diamond emitters would be placed on a chip in what Thomas refers to as the addressable field emitter array, or AFEA. With a successful AFEA process, Thomas says the chip manufacturers could realize incredible yields of chip density. "The cathodes emit electrons, similar to the way a digital television screen works," Thomas says. "You could fire six million or so programmed emissions at once at a chip. You would need no mask; you would be coding the surface directly with the electrons. "That's why we say it's like going from an analog to digital technology. In less than one second, you could write a square centimeter with 100-nanometer features. A chip wafer would have 300 one-centimeter squares on it." Thomas and his colleagues proposed the project three years ago and received DARPA funds to build a prototype, which has resulted in two wafers of 5 5-pixel cathode chips. Larry Baylor of Fusion Energy Division has been measuring current emissions of the AFEAs ("You want current, not voltage, because it's more uniform," Thomas says). The Solid State Division's Doug Lowndes has experimented in making the amorphous

diamond by using laser ablation. Thomas counts six ORNL divisions involved in the projectI&C, Fusion Energy, M&C, Solid State, Engineering Technology and Computational Physics and Engineering. Thomas says the critical issues in the continuing work are whether they can make the amorphous diamond emitters reliable, uniform, stable, controllable and reproducible. "In other words, can we make them do what we need for them to do." If they can, the limits to the data acrobatics currently performed with microchips will be pushed way beyond what seemed possible just a few years ago A transistor is a semiconductor device used to amplify and switch electronic signals. It is made of a solid piece of semiconductor material, with at least three terminals for connection to an external circuit. A voltage or current applied to one pair of the transistor's terminals changes the current flowing through another pair of terminals. Because the controlled (output) power can be much more than the controlling (input) power, the transistor provides amplification of a signal. Today, some transistors are packaged individually, but many more are found embedded in integrated circuits. The transistor is the fundamental building block of modern electronic devices, and is ubiquitous in modern electronic systems. Following its release in the early 1950s the transistor revolutionised the field of electronics, and paved the way for smaller and cheaper radios, calculators, and computers, amongst other things. The transistor is the key active component in practically all modern electronics, and is considered by many to be one of the greatest inventions of the twentieth century.[9] Its importance in today's society rests on its ability to be mass produced using a highly automated process (semiconductor device fabrication) that achieves astonishingly low per-transistor costs. Although several companies each produce over a billion individually packaged (known as discrete) transistors every year,[10] the vast majority of transistors now produced are in integrated circuits (often shortened to IC, microchips or simply chips), along with diodes, resistors, capacitors and other electronic components, to produce complete electronic circuits. A logic gate consists of up to about twenty transistors whereas an advanced microprocessor, as of 2009, can use as many as 2.3 billion transistors (MOSFETs).[11] "About 60 million transistors were built this year [2002] ... for [each] man, woman, and child on Earth."[12] The transistor's low cost, flexibility, and reliability have made it a ubiquitous device. Transistorized mechatronic circuits have replaced electromechanical devices in controlling appliances and machinery. It is often easier and cheaper to use a standard microcontroller and write a computer program to carry out a control function than to design an equivalent mechanical control function.

[edit] Usage
The bipolar junction transistor, or BJT, was the most commonly used transistor in the 1960s and 70s. Even after MOSFETs became widely available, the BJT remained the transistor of choice for many analog circuits such as simple amplifiers because of their greater linearity and ease of manufacture. Desirable properties of MOSFETs, such as their utility in low-power devices, usually in the CMOS configuration, allowed them to capture nearly all market share for digital circuits; more recently MOSFETs have captured most analog and power applications as well, including modern clocked analog circuits, voltage regulators, amplifiers, power transmitters, motor drivers, etc Prior to the development of transistors, vacuum (electron) tubes (or in the UK "thermionic valves" or just "valves") were the main active components in electronic equipment.

[edit] Advantages
The key advantages that have allowed transistors to replace their vacuum tube predecessors in most applications are

Small size and minimal weight, allowing the development of miniaturized electronic devices. Highly automated manufacturing processes, resulting in low per-unit cost. Lower possible operating voltages, making transistors suitable for small, batterypowered applications. No warm-up period for cathode heaters required after power application. Lower power dissipation and generally greater energy efficiency. Higher reliability and greater physical ruggedness. Extremely long life. Some transistorized devices have been in service for more than 50 years. Complementary devices available, facilitating the design of complementarysymmetry circuits, something not possible with vacuum tubes. Insensitivity to mechanical shock and vibration, thus avoiding the problem of microphonics in audio applications.

[edit] Limitations

Silicon transistors do not operate at voltages higher than about 1,000 volts (SiC devices can be operated as high as 3,000 volts). In contrast, electron tubes have been developed that can be operated at tens of thousands of volts. High power, high frequency operation, such as that used in over-the-air television broadcasting, is better achieved in electron tubes due to improved electron mobility in a vacuum. Silicon transistors are much more vulnerable than electron tubes to an electromagnetic pulse generated by a high-altitude nuclear explosion.

[edit] Types
PNP NPN BJT JFET P-channel N-channel

BJT and JFET symbols

P-channel N-channel JFET MOSFET enh MOSFET dep

JFET and IGFET symbols Transistors are categorized by

Semiconductor material: germanium, silicon, gallium arsenide, silicon carbide, etc. Structure: BJT, JFET, IGFET (MOSFET), IGBT, "other types" Polarity: NPN, PNP (BJTs); N-channel, P-channel (FETs) Maximum power rating: low, medium, high Maximum operating frequency: low, medium, high, radio frequency (RF), microwave (The maximum effective frequency of a transistor is denoted by the term fT, an abbreviation for "frequency of transition". The frequency of transition is the frequency at which the transistor yields unity gain). Application: switch, general purpose, audio, high voltage, super-beta, matched pair Physical packaging: through hole metal, through hole plastic, surface mount, ball grid array, power modules Amplification factor hfe (transistor beta)[14]

Thus, a particular transistor may be described as silicon, surface mount, BJT, NPN, low power,

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