Is Silicon Valley Due for a Name Change?

Those among us of a certain age can still remember the huge improvement in graphics that would come with the release of each new generation of video game consoles. The Super Nintendo was a huge leap forward compared to the original NES, and the Nintendo 64 was likewise a huge upgrade compared to the Super Nintendo. But these days it is hard to tell the difference between new and old when updated hardware is released.

Computing technologies are still advancing rapidly, but there is increasingly a similar feeling that is starting to arise in this area as well. This year’s processors do not seem to offer the quantum leap in performance that upgrades of yesteryear did. Part of the reason for this slowdown is that we are starting to butt up against the physical limits of the underlying hardware. In particular, the transistors that are etched into the silicon of chips are now so small that we are approaching the atomic scale.

Hitting the wall

As silicon-based transistors continue to shrink, they face challenges like quantum tunneling, where electrons can spontaneously leak out, causing errors and increasing power consumption. It is for this reason that a group of engineers at MIT is starting to look beyond silicon. If they are right, the future of computing may be built on the backs of magnetic semiconductors.

Specifically, the team has created a new type of transistor using a magnetic semiconductor material rather than traditional silicon. Transistors are the basic on-off switches of electronics, controlling the flow of electricity in everything from smartphones to supercomputers. For decades, silicon has served well in this role. But as device makers push for smaller, faster, and more energy-efficient hardware, silicon’s limitations have become harder to ignore.

The team’s work revolves around replacing silicon with chromium sulfur bromide (CrSBr), a two-dimensional magnetic semiconductor. This material has unusual properties: its magnetism directly influences how it conducts electricity. That makes it possible to control transistors not just with voltage, as in today’s chips, but also by manipulating magnetic states. This blending of magnetism and semiconductor physics opens the door to devices that can operate at lower power and even store information within the transistor itself.

A solution with magnetic appeal

One major advantage is that CrSBr allows the transistor to switch cleanly between “on” and “off” states with far less energy than silicon. Most magnetic transistors developed in the past could only weakly affect current flow, typically changing it by a few percent. This design, by contrast, alters current by a factor of ten, a leap that suggests real-world applications may be on the horizon.

Another advantage of this approach is the potential to merge memory and logic into a single device. Traditional computer architectures require separate components: memory cells to store data and transistors to process it. This transistor could perform both roles simultaneously, simplifying circuit design and improving efficiency.

Looking ahead, the researchers plan to refine the technology by developing methods to scale up production and fabricate arrays of these transistors. If successful, this technology might one day help us to speed up the pace of innovation.