原创 The world's first graphene-based processor

The world-famous design laboratory in Bytom, Poland, Digital Core Design, has developed the world's first processor made of graphene – the BYT-ON.

Discovered in 2004, graphene is an allotrope of carbon. Its structure is one-atom-thick planar sheets of carbon atoms that are densely packed in a honeycomb crystal lattice. Graphene differs from most conventional materials. Intrinsic graphene is a semi-metal or zero-gap semiconductor. The E-k relation is linear for low energies near the six corners of the two-dimensional hexagonal Brillouin zone, leading to zero effective mass for electrons and holes. Due to this linear dispersion relationship at low energies, electrons and holes near these six points behave like relativistic particles described by the Dirac equation for spin 1/2 particles.

The end result is that graphene-based conductors can transport electronic signals at relativistic speeds, while graphene-based transistors can switch many orders of magnitude faster than their conventional silicon-based counterparts, all while consuming minimal power. In fact, graphene is such an amazing material that the Nobel Prize in Physics for 2010 was awarded to Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov at the University of Manchester "For groundbreaking experiments regarding the two-dimensional material graphene".

Use of graphene in Digital Core Design' BYT-ON processor represents a breakthrough in electronics. The traditional silicon structure used to build conventional integrated circuits has been replaced with polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. "We commenced our tests just before the end of 2011, and the results far exceeded our expectations," notes Tomasz ?wienk, the spokesman for Digital Core Design. "We replaced the existing processor in one of the newest tablets available on the market with our graphene-based BYT-ON processor. We knew that the BYT-ON's power-consumption was going to be minimal, but we were amazed to discover that the tablet ran all the way from the beginning of January 2012 until the end of March 2012ÿ– three full months – without our having to recharge the battery."

These revolutionary results were possible due to the combination of the Digital Core Design's proprietary architecture (which is the outcome of 12 years of the company's experience) and the graphene itself, which opens new possibilities for the electronic industry. The architecture implemented in the BYT-ON processor is called CISKoRISK 2nd Generation – it performs all operations with speeds reaching up 99.13% the speed of light, while maintaining 99.85% lower power consumption than conventional silicon-based equivalents.

Note: The rumor on the streets is that the world's top ten FPGA vendors are already in secret consultations with Digital Core Design with regard to the application of the BYT-ON's underlying graphene transistor structure as the basis for next-generation FPGAs. One tremendous advantage of this technology for FPGA applications is that memory cells (including configuration cells) constructed out of graphene transistors switch orders of magnitude faster than SRAM, have orders of magnitude higher density than DRAM, and the non-volatility of Flash, all while consuming almost zero power. Furthermore, graphene-based transistors are immune to radiation events, making this technology ideal for aerospace applications including deep-space probes.

For more details about the BYT-ON graphene-based processor, please contact Digital Core Design (www.dcd.pl).