The Future of Everything The future of electronic materials
Mar 7, 2025
Eric Pop, a professor of electrical engineering and materials science at Stanford, discusses the impending materials revolution in electronics. He reveals how traditional silicon and copper are facing challenges as devices shrink. Pop highlights the promise of atomically thin semiconductors like molybdenum disulfide and topological semimetals such as niobium phosphide. He emphasizes AI's crucial role in discovering new materials, making the future of electronic devices both fascinating and efficient.
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Electronics Status Quo
- Electronics rely on silicon for semiconductors and copper for wiring.
- Miniaturization drives speed increases, but material limitations are emerging.
Silicon and Copper Roles
- Silicon, a semiconductor, forms transistors, while copper connects them.
- Miniaturization has enabled cramming billions of components onto a chip.
Logic and Memory Bottleneck
- Separate logic and memory chips create a bottleneck in data transfer.
- Computing is faster when data resides on the same chip.