[Graphite] Moore's Law troubles Intel TI. Will graphene continue the chip legend?

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An American Wall Street analyst pointed out that more and more semiconductor companies tend to pay short-term investment returns to shareholders instead of investing in long-term research and development projects; if this is true, it will be a major and unfortunate milestone in the development of the semiconductor industry.

"In the past, not investing in R&D was a sign of stagnant growth and an inability to be competitive in the future," said the analyst, who requested anonymity so he could speak freely. Now, investors' view is: "Since the chip industry is no longer growing significantly, why continue to throw money into the water?"

It is understood that Texas Instruments (TI) is a typical example of this new thinking. The company recently bought back nearly $3 billion of company shares, which increased its stock price by 40%. At the analyst earnings conference on May 13 last year, TI's chief financial officer announced a new model that has been properly arranged to allow the company to release cash flow and pay more dividends to shareholders; TI has returned to shareholders in the past five years, 113% of the previous investment target, with cumulative profits of $14 billion.

The anonymous analyst said that ten years ago, that cash might have been used to add one or two new wafer fabs, but not today: "Since the growth rate is expected to be only 5% a year, why should it be used to invest in R&D? When the industry's return on investment (ROI) declines, people also need to adjust their investment strategies."

"Every company is weighing this question," he said, adding: "Costs are rising in line with Moore's Law, but potential payback is getting harder and harder to come by; these days you have to think more like an economist than a technologist."

Intel's strategy seems to be the opposite of TI's. It still has many expensive large-scale fabs and continues to invest in them. Intel has not returned much short-term profit to shareholders, but when the company finally recovers those investments one day, that is when the profit tide comes. However, the "short-sightedness" of investors and the "foresight" of enterprises are ultimately incompatible; the analyst concluded: "Chip manufacturers must invest in order to move towards the future."

In my opinion, the progress of semiconductor technology has always been much slower than the rate of cost increase, and the era of double-digit growth in the semiconductor industry has ended since the global financial crisis in 2008. When you start to add in the shift in investors' preference for short-term dividends rather than R&D investment, I am more worried about how this industry will find new growth drivers!

Unbelievable graphene: the magical "carbon" that is expected to continue Moore's Law

Almost half a century has passed since Gordon Moore proposed "Moore's Law", which has witnessed the rapid development of the semiconductor industry. However, more and more scientists believe that "Moore's Law" will face a test of physical limits.

So, after the "Silicon Age", what material will take the lead in the semiconductor industry? Graphene is generally considered by the industry to be the most promising material. In other words, the semiconductor industry will enter the "Carbon Age" from the "Silicon Age". Now let's take a look at this magical "Carbon"!

Magical "Carbon" Incredible Graphene

Graphene is a hexagonal flat film composed of carbon atoms in a honeycomb structure. It is only one carbon atom thick, so it is a two-dimensional material. Physicists have found that the movement of electrons in graphene has very strange properties. The electrons in it only have wave properties and no particle properties, that is, the mass of electrons seems to be non-existent. This property makes graphene a rare condensed matter that can be used to study the so-called relativistic quantum mechanics - because massless particles must move at the speed of light, and therefore must be described by relativistic quantum mechanics. What's even more amazing is that the "speed of light" in relativistic quantum mechanics is not the speed of light in a vacuum, but only 1/300 of the latter.

Graphene also has the so-called quantum Hall effect, which is an important effect of Nobel Prize level. In the past, it could only be manifested at extremely low temperatures, but graphene can bring it to room temperature. In an interview with the media, Novoselov once said that in order to make physicists change their research direction, they must be tempted with something ten times more interesting than what they are studying. Graphene undoubtedly has such charm for many theoretical physicists, and thus attracted many followers.

Graphene has many incredible properties that even scientists cannot explain. For example, it is biocompatible and will not cause rejection after being implanted in an organism, which brings good news to many modern diagnosis and treatment. In addition, it is also amazing in anti-cancer. Cancer cells are difficult to survive on graphene, but normal cells can survive.

Graphene has a low resistivity, lower than copper and silver, and a high electron mobility. Using it as a transistor material can greatly increase the clock frequency of the processor. Tomas Palacios, an associate professor of electrical engineering and computer science at MIT, once said that under existing technical conditions, it is very difficult to generate frequencies above 4 or 5 GHz. The graphene frequency multiplier can allow the system to operate in the range of 500 GHz to 1000 GHz. Using only 0.18nm technology, a 100 GHZ processor can be manufactured.

Of course, graphene does not only show its magic in the processor field. Next, let’s take a look at its applications in other fields.

Graphene supercapacitors: high energy density and fast charging and discharging speed

Let’s take a look at the following short messages to see how graphene is used in battery research:

It is reported that Australian scientists have used graphene to create a more compact supercapacitor with a service life comparable to that of traditional batteries and an energy density 12 times that of existing supercapacitors. It can be widely used in renewable energy storage, portable electronic devices, and electric vehicles. (OFweek Electronic Engineering Network)

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