Researchers Set Speed Record for Silicon-Based Chips

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Close up of cryogenic test station in the Georgia Electronic Design Center at Georgia Tech in Atlanta. The black squares are silicon-germanium chips under study. The facility is capable of cooling electronic devices to temperatures near absolute zero ...
Close up of cryogenic test station in the Georgia Electronic Design Center at Georgia Tech in Atlanta. The black squares are silicon-germanium chips under study. The facility is capable of cooling electronic devices to temperatures near absolute zero. Photo: Gary Meek

A research team from IBM and the Georgia Institute of Technology has demonstrated the first silicon-germanium transistor able to operate at frequencies above 500 GHz. Though the record performance was attained at extremely cold temperatures, the results suggest that the upper bound for performance in silicon-germanium devices may be higher than originally expected.


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