Samsung Electronics has Developed a new Transistor Structure using Graphene to increase the possibilities of transistor in future, reported online by the journal Science, 17th May.
Graphene is considered as a potential substitute for Silicon, since it possess electron mobility about 200 times greater than that of Silicon. Although the main issue with Graphene is that current cannot be switched off as in conventional semiconductor devices since it is semi-metallic. To represent ‘1’ and ‘0’ digital signals both ON and OFF states are required. Researchers tried to convert Graphene to a semiconductor but it radically decreased the mobility of Graphene.
Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology re-engineered the basic operating principles of digital switches to develop a device that can switch off the current in Graphene transistor without degrading its mobility. Its Graphene-Silicon Schottky barrier can switch the current ON and OFF by changing the height of barrier. Due to its barrier controllable feature, the new device is named as Barristor. Moreover they demonstrated the operations of the most basic gate Inverter and Logic circuit Half Adder using this technology. They also owns 9 major patents related to the structure and the operating method of the Graphene Barristor.
We can hope that this breakthrough will keep Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology at the forefront of graphene-related industries and the pace of Moore’s Law for a decade.