Diamond transistors switch 50x faster than silicon, and now match 3nm chips
Diamond Foundry, working with Stanford University, is building all-diamond MOSFETs that switch 50 times faster than conventional devices. Instead of implanting dopant atoms, the transistors use surface transfer doping: hydrogen-terminated diamond surfaces form a two-dimensional hole gas just nanometers deep, preserving the crystal's purity, thermal conductivity, and breakdown strength. DF says its devices now match state-of-the-art 3nm silicon in subthreshold swing.
Because no ion implantation or lattice substitution is required, surface transfer doping avoids defect generation and carrier scattering associated with conventional doping, making it particularly attractive for high-power, high-frequency, and radiation-hard electronic device platforms.
- TGower
It still amazes me that the rare shiny rocks humanity has appreciated for thousands of years also turn out to have amazing properties even compared to the synthetic materials we are now capable of creating. It's still the hardest material we have measured. It is the best thermal conductor, even though it's an electrical insulator.
- mitxela
I still don't know how to even make a silicon transistor.
- xnx
Asionometry video on the topic: Why Diamond Transistors Are So Hard (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLmd5vL0zmk)