14 DAY TRIAL // Graphene is still years away from actually being useful, no matter how grand and amazing it comes across right now, but IBM didn't let that stop it from making a chip from it.
The electronic nanomaterial was used in a radio frequency device, specifically a multi-stage RF receiver integrated circuit.
The RF chip is made of three graphene transistors, four inductors, two capacitors, and two resistors. All of them fit inside an area of 0.6 square mm.
IBM used a 200mm silicon production line to make the chip, but reversed the conventional silicon integrated circuit fabrication flow, leaving graphene transistors as the last step.
It's all just a proof of concept really, to show how complex graphene circuitry is. And yet IBM has still managed to enable the highest silicon CMOS process compatibility.
The RF chip was used to receive and restore a digital text message carried on a 4.3 GHz signal, all without distortion (I-B-M was the text).