Researchers at MIT have developed a graphene-based microchip that can operate at 1,000GHz, a much higher speed that conventional silicon chips would ever dream of reaching. These ultra-fast microchips can improve the data transfer rate for cellphones, computers, or other electronic devices. When it was discovered in 2004, graphene was regarded as a material that could lead to many new applications and it seems like this form of pure carbon can contribute to manufacturing transistors and prototype devices.[ad#social]
The research was led by Tomás Palacios, assistant professor in MIT’s Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, EECS assistant professor Jing Kong, and two of their students, Han Wang and Daniel Nezich. The MIT team of researchers developed a graphene chip that was supposed to act as a frequency multiplier which can input an electrical signal of a specified frequency and output an electrical signal with a multiplied frequency.
MIT’s graphene-based microchip managed to double the frequency of the input electrical signal, and besides that, it offers several other advantages. Conventional frequency multipliers need many components, generate “messy” electrical signal which have to be filtered and they consume large amounts of power. Well, the graphene chip is based on one transistor, it doesn’t produce a “messy” signal therefore it doesn’t need filtering, and it doesn’t need too much power.
“In electronics, we’re always trying to increase the frequency so that we can build faster and faster computers. It’s very difficult to generate high frequencies above 4 or 5 gigahertz,” said Palacios.
However, when it comes to graphene microchips, we can reach speeds in the range of 500 to 1,000 GHz. But how did the MIT researchers manage to achieve this? The answer is simple – they just had to run in series several graphene chips.
“Researchers have been trying to find uses for this material since its discovery in 2004. I believe this application will have tremendous implications in high-frequency communications and electronics,” added Palacios.
Although the study is at early stages, it has already drawn the attention of “many other offices in the federal government and major chip-making companies” and according to Palacios, “it may take a year of work, maximum two” before the graphene chip enters in mass production.
Graphene it one of the most exciting materials in Science and Technology as it’s the strongest and most reliable material ever discovered, and it has a great advantage over others: mobility, an electrical property which allows electrons to stir in the material.
“In physics today, graphene is, arguably, the most exciting topic. Graphene will play a key role in future electronics. We just need to identify the right devices to take full advantage of its outstanding properties. Frequency multipliers could be one of these devices,” said Palacios.
This does have some serious implications involving the speed of IC’s etc…
I think the first goal would be to make memory out of this technology to put it on par with current CPU’s.
Are you seeing this, Ray?
control alt delete skate. You love it!
Amazing! And in case you’re reading this, hi Will!
Anyone notice that the scope has a bandwidth of only 500 MHz and a sampling rate of 2 GS/s. How is that sine wave representative of the 1-THz signal they supposedly got? Are they using a 1000:1 divider?
“Anyone notice that the scope has a bandwidth of only 500 MHz and a sampling rate of 2 GS/s. How is that sine wave representative of the 1-THz signal they supposedly got? Are they using a 1000:1 divider?”
If you’ve ever been a scientist dealing with the media you’ll notice they just need pretty pictures to go with their stories. Often those pictures aren’t so representative of the actual research, just iconographic like this.
That is crazy fast! Can’t wait to get one of those in my computer :p
Actually nevermind i’m sure i could manage to overclock mine to that speed.
“That is crazy fast! Can’t wait to get one of those in my computer :p
Actually nevermind i’m sure i could manage to overclock mine to that speed.”
Joel, you are a tool. You could never overclock your system to that speed. In the instance that you are using sarcasm, assume that I am also.
omg…. do we want more fast than that…. thanks technology… i think sites like guple that are very busy should have one of this on their servers
Uhmmm… Ok Everybody. Please settle down, and re-read the article. This is not a processor that runs at 1kGHz. It is a low powered, efficient frequency multiplier. Seriously. I figured there’d be the one guy saying “Loll 1337 computorz wantz for my Crysis 1111~!”, but I think most comments so far have been along these lines. Why??? It’s a semiconductor device with likely applications in communications technology. It’s not going to make your Duke Nukems run faster.
The article says they run the graphene chips in “series”. I don’t see how this could possibly result in an overall increase in clock rate. A byproduct of putting something in series is that it makes each part dependent on the previous parts. So, if the first chip is running at 1Ghz, all of the rest are going to have to run at that rate as well. (And if the first chip is really running at 1000Ghz, then there is no reason to add the others).
Even if the author meant that these were running in “parallel”, it would still not mean that they were running at 1000Ghz. Running 1000 cpus in parallel at 1Ghz each does NOT mean the system is running at 1000Ghz. Most types of applications could not use much of this parallel processing power.
Aaron, a frequency multiplier is a device that given an input frequency outputs a higher frequency, so, if you put several such devices in series (output of one chip is the input of the next chip)…
“”"Anyone notice that the scope has a bandwidth of only 500 MHz and a sampling rate of 2 GS/s. How is that sine wave representative of the 1-THz signal they supposedly got? Are they using a 1000:1 divider”"”
Hey guys, anyone worth their ic’s can tell the scope pic is SHOPPED. Just look at the pixels, it’s easy for me to see.
OMG…
Thats the chip from the Terminator.
shopped
So it’s a single transistor chip, when we have hundreds of millions in a CPU. Doesn’t compare, guys.
Crysis, eat your heart out!
definitely shopped. shading’s all wrong.