Near-Future Tech

[elite marksman]

I was reading June's PopSci last night and came across an interesting article. It was seemingly unrelated to computers: it was an article about a new process to synthesize diamonds. As I read further into the article, it said that once an infrastrucure was in place to mass manufacture the synthetic diamonds, it is likley that diamond will replace silicon as the primary semiconductor in electronics. Because of its highly ordered crystalline srutcture, Diamonds can withstand tempuratures more than 1300F, while silicon breaks down at roughly 250F. It said that because of the higher possible running temps, max processor speed without elaborate cooling mechanisims could jump from 10GHz to 80GHz. It also said to expect diamond-powered chips in about 5 years.

[congo]

I'd like to see a 5ghz silicon cpu let alone a 10ghz one.

I'm guessing diamond CPU's would be great overclockers

[elite marksman]

Only problem is that with a silicon chip, if it overheats, it just melts. If you manage to overheat a diamond chip, most combustibles will flash burn, not to mention the plastic circuit board will melt, aluminium cases will warp and get really hot and so on. Expect liquid cooling.  ;)
They use a really small diamond  as a seed, the quality of this diamond isn't very important, so a very cheap diamond can be used. The seed is placed in a microwave chamber filled with a special reactive carbon. The microwave is turned on and the carbon reacts with the plasma that is created and falls on the seed, producing a 1-2 (current, they think they can make a 6+) carat pure diamond. These diamonds are so pure that the De Beers diamond cartel has started etching thier logo into their diamond so they won't be confused with synthetics.