
Engineers build advanced microprocessor out of carbon nanotubes - lelf
https://phys.org/news/2019-08-advanced-microprocessor-carbon-nanotubes.html
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incompatible
Already discussed at
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20823339](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20823339)

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crakenzak
The great thing about research and development like this is by designing
practical use cases for carbon nanotubes, its far more likely for large
companies (eg TSMC, Samsung, Intel) to pick up and invest large amounts of R&D
money to improve yield/production of carbon nanotubes, benefiting everyone
involved.

Reminds me of how large phone/computer makers like Apple, Samsung and Huawei
help foot the cost of R&D for so many innovations in the tech field (expensive
die shrinks, display technology) which ends up trickling to nearly every
industry.

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Ice_cream_suit
Just remember carbon nanotubes are highly carcinogenic.

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ganzuul
Is breaking open processors and inhaling the dust a common occurrence where
you live?

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Ice_cream_suit
Although that sounds like fun (for certain values of fun), the issue would
exposure during fabrication and possibly during destruction of nano tube
containing equipment.

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the8472
We have to rely on them handling hazardous substances properly anyway since
semiconductor manufacturing already involves many of them. They use ClF₃ and
sulfuric acid as cleaning agents, phosphine for doping, silane for CVD, etc.

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hkmurakami
As with anything nanotubes, scalability and yield are the bottleneck and have
been for the last ~20 years. Not sure we've made much progress in the 10 years
since I was a great student in the field?

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ridruejo
The article points out different ways yield is increased to get to a practical
level

