From Peter Saul
Joerg Heber notes that the price for abandoning silicon-based technology is “huge” (6 December 2008, p 35). That is the core reason why silicon will not be abandoned.
It has cost trillions of dollars to bring silicon to its dominant position. A new silicon fabrication plant costs up to $5 billion. A universal conversion to carbon, or any other material, will cost at least $500 billion.
There are technical reasons, too. Silicon forms a hard, uniform, non-water-soluble oxide. All silicon technology since the invention of the planar process has depended on that single point. Had the oxide of silicon been a gas, and that of carbon a solid, then we would perhaps be silicon-based beings, using carbon microprocessors.
Towcester, Northamptonshire, UK
