Nano Diamond Chips: Commercialization is Approaching

Diamond is famous for its extreme hardness and brilliance. For over 50 years, its primary use has been in jewelry. However, due to its unique properties, diamond is now emerging as a new semiconductor material, following gallium nitride and silicon carbide.

Advantage

Diamond has three key advantages over current semiconductor materials: 

1. Thermal Management
Chips need cooling systems, which add to their complexity. Unlike most semiconductor materials, diamond’s resistivity decreases as the temperature rises, meaning diamond chips perform better at high temperatures (around 150°C) than at room temperature. This makes cooling systems unnecessary for diamond chips, unlike silicon or silicon carbide chips, which require expensive cooling solutions.

2. Cost and Efficiency
Chip design usually involves a balance between cost, efficiency, size, and weight. If minimizing costs is the priority, diamond chips are 30% cheaper than silicon carbide chips. If maximizing efficiency is the goal, diamond reduces energy loss by three times and can shrink chip size by up to four times compared to silicon carbide, saving both space and energy.

3. Carbon Emission Reduction
Diamond has a much higher breakdown electric field strength than other materials:

• Silicon: 0.3 MV/cm
• Silicon carbide (SiC): 3 MV/cm
• Gallium nitride (GaN): 5 MV/cm
• Diamond: 10 MV/cm

Even very thin diamond layers offer excellent electrical insulation and can handle high voltages. When paired with materials like gallium nitride or silicon carbide, diamond can enhance power devices, offering higher voltages, frequencies, and energy efficiency. This has major applications in electric vehicles, renewable energy inverters, industrial motors, high-power lasers, and advanced power supplies, all of which benefit from reduced carbon emissions.

Challenges
Despite its advantages, diamond chips have some limitations:

1. High Cost: Silicon carbide is 30 to 40 times more expensive than silicon, while gallium nitride is 650 to 1,300 times more costly. Synthetic diamond used in semiconductors is roughly 10,000 times pricier than silicon.
2. Small Wafer Size: Diamond wafers are still too small for large-scale chip production, with the largest available wafer being less than 10 square millimeters.