eli5: What exactly is silicone and why is it so essential to making electronics ?
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Silicone is a rubbery polymer, and not used in electronics.
Silicon is the 14th element on the periodic table. It is in a group of elements between the metals and nonmetals called metalloids. It has some properties of metals and some properties of nonmetals.
One of those properties makes silicon what is known as a semiconductor, meaning in sometimes its a conductor, and sometimes it’s not.
This allows us to make a switch with no moving parts called a transistor. We do this by changing the conidtions in a piece of silicon so it no linger conducts. Before this, we had to use vacuum tubes, which have a beam of electrons shooting through it, consume a lot of electricity, and need to warm up before use, and are much bigger.
Transistors now a days can be as small as 2 nanometers, meaning we can fit billions on single chip, rather than vacuum tubes, the smallest of which is 1/4″ around and 1″ long.
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