'Laying' diamonds onto semiconductor chips to increase durability

These chips are expected to bring unprecedented benefits such as extreme performance and super-fast heat dissipation .

Heat is considered the "number 1 enemy" of all types of equipment. From light bulbs, vehicles to nuclear reactors. all need to be cooled to operate sustainably and prevent fire. explode.

Heat dissipation is considered a difficult problem for chip manufacturers today. (Photo: Ag5).

The same goes for semiconductor chips . ^{According to Intel expert Rahul Manepalli, a piece of chip nearly 26 cm 2} in size can radiate up to 1,000 W of heat, equivalent to the heat of a hair dryer. Therefore, if you want the chip to achieve higher performance without damage, heat dissipation must be a top priority.

To solve the above problem, chip manufacturers in Silicon Valley are looking for some materials with good heat dissipation ability, replacing silicon in microchips. Among them, synthetic diamonds and ultra-pure glass are considered the most potential.

Diamond dissipates heat, glass increases durability

The most feasible option is to develop a conventional chip, removing the silicon base that does not contain circuits and attaching the remaining part to diamond crystals.

Grasping that trend, the American company Diamond Foundry recently successfully produced artificial diamond wafers that are 10.16 cm in diameter, less than 3 mm thick and can be attached to silicon chips.

The artificial diamond wafer has the ability to help the chip dissipate heat quickly. (Photo: Diamond Foundry).

"Semiconductor chips from diamond can operate at double the manufacturer's clock speed. Our engineers even tripled the clock speed of one of the most powerful chip lines made by Nvidia" , Diamond Foundry CEO Martin Roscheisen said.

Mr. Roscheisen said the company is in discussions with the world's leading chip manufacturers, along with many defense corporations and electric vehicle companies, to help their products operate faster and have smaller sizes.

The good news is that the price of artificial diamonds is getting cheaper. Each wafer currently costs the same as a silicon carbide wafer, a material commonly used in electric cars.

In addition to Diamond Foundry's monocrystalline diamond wafer, another option is polycrystalline diamond, which is easier to synthesize. Coherent, a company headquartered in the US state of Pennsylvania, specializes in producing this material for laser applications.

The ultra-pure glass substrate increases the durability of the chips used by Intel. (Photo: Intel).

Meanwhile, Intel is pursuing the option of installing chips on ultra-pure glass panels . Glass does not help dissipate heat, but it ensures that the semiconductor chip is not damaged as its size increases and its energy consumption increases.

The glass substrate also provides high connection density, allowing chip components to communicate faster without increasing power consumption.

Intel engineers have demonstrated the effectiveness of this technology in laboratory conditions. The company plans to launch the first chip using ultra-pure glass substrate after 2025.

Completely remove silicone

Predicting the future of the chip industry, experts believe that one day we can completely eliminate silicon in microchips.

In addition to diamond and glass, another potential candidate is boron arsenide . This is known as the third best material in the world in terms of heat dissipation.

Future chips will completely eliminate silicon in the microchip. (Photo: Cseh Ioan/Alamy).

Furthermore, while diamond is an insulator, boron arsenide is a semiconductor , like silicon. Thus, this substance can be used to create microchips.

In particular, boron arsenide crystals are very effective at moving around positively charged quasiparticles called 'holes'. This would make possible types of computational logic that are not widely used today.

Chips made from boron arsenide are expected to open a new era for the chip industry with unprecedented benefits such as extremely high performance and super-fast heat dissipation.