All-graphene computer chip could steer us past the 22nm copper and silicon bottleneck

In 2015 — now just over a year away — the International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors (ITRS), which is set out by the industry’s top experts, predicts that the copper wiring that connects together the billions of transistors in a modern CPU or GPU just can’t be miniaturized any further. The copper wires can only get so thin before the increased resistance and other manufacturing issues make them unworkable. Graphene, however, by virtue of its status as a wonder material, isn’t hindered by the same puny restrictions as copper and could theoretically scale down to just a handful of nanometers or less, allowing for the creation of computer chips that are orders of magnitude more dense and powerful, while consuming less energy.