How things move on.

[zimrahil]

hmm, my bad...



wrong.totally wrong.Silicon isn't a semicondutor, it is a raw material used to manufacture semicondutors.and it's limitations isn't related to impurities().

one needs the knowledge of quantum mechanics to understand limitations of silicon based semicondutors.however, it can be crudely explained.

here it goes:
circuits are "engraved" on silicon wafers by the use of lazers.the 65mm(conroe, nvidia7xxx lineup) , 90 mm (ATI 1xxx) , 110mm fabrication processes etc specify the size of lazers used to "engrave" the circuits onto the wafer.

however, to fabricate with a lazer size smaller than 65 mm is a complex problem.because the size of atom becomes important as the size of lazer becomes smaller.hence quantum effects has to be taken into account.
these effects lead to, among other things "short circuiting" of those super close wires.

the only hope for Semicondutor fabrication is nano-technology based fabrication.in it, the circuit is shrunk to make it atomic sized.eg, wires are atoms forming a liner chain, and many more things.

nano technology is currently limited to test labs( or maybe defence) but it might take about 10 yrs to become fully mainstream.

I hope this isn't another "it's a dot matrix printer" type post

 

[blackleopard92]

I hope this isn't another "it's a dot matrix printer" type post

no man.I am studying these things.
fabrication is a part of our course, and in 6 or 7th semester, we would fabricate chips ourselves.although those will be by about 400-800mm lasers.
( used in writing CD( 800 mm) DVD( 650mm) Blue ray ( 400mm) disks)