New Super‐fast Semi‐conductor Material for Future Electronic Systems

A material that could well replace the silicon chip in future generations of aircraft communications, radar and early warning systems, is now under active development in various military and industrial establishments. Speed is the essence in any communication system and it has been determined that electrons will move six times faster through gallium arsenide (GaAs) than through silicon. GaAs substrates also have the important characteristic of having high resistivity. The superiority of silicon over gallium arsenide at the present time is principally due to the considerable developments that have taken place over many years in Silicon Valley, California, and other research centres. This has resulted in GaAs integrated circuits supporting only several hundred components compared with the near 500,000 in silicon (si).