Three of the most important names in semiconductors say they have cleared a major hurdle on the road to chips that move beyond traditional silicon.
According to Tom's Hardware, the research group imec, lithography maker ASML, and chip manufacturer TSMC have built complementary transistors using channels made from atomically thin 2D materials. Crucially, they did it on a standard 300mm wafer — the same large-format silicon disc used in commercial chip factories — rather than in a small, lab-only demonstration.
The team integrated both of the transistor types that modern logic chips need to work together: n-type and p-type devices. Tom's Hardware reports these were fabricated at a 50nm pitch, a measure of how tightly the components are packed.
Why does this matter? For decades, the industry has shrunk silicon transistors to pack more computing power into each chip. But silicon is running into physical limits as features approach the size of a few atoms. Materials just a few atoms thick — so-called 2D materials — are seen as a promising successor because they can keep performing where silicon falters.
The headline framing from Tom's Hardware is that this work brings the "post-silicon era" closer by addressing the 2D transistor scaling bottleneck. Getting both transistor types working at production-relevant dimensions on a full-size wafer is the kind of step that separates a science experiment from something a fab could eventually scale.
It's still research, not a product. But if the next generation of processors needs a material beyond silicon to keep getting faster, demonstrations like this one are how that future gets built.