microelectronics components tagged posts

(Left to right): Postdoc Kyusang Lee, Professor Jeehwan Kim (sitting), and graduate students Samuel Cruz and Yunjo Kim. Credit: Jose-Luis Olivares/MIT

A new technique may vastly reduce the overall cost of wafer technology and enable devices made from more exotic, higher-performing semiconductor materials than conventional silicon. The new method uses graphene as a sort of ‘copy machine’ to transfer intricate crystalline patterns from an underlying semiconductor wafer to a top layer of identical material. In 2016, annual global semiconductor sales reached their highest-ever point, at $339 billion worldwide. In that same year, the semiconductor industry spent about $7...