Why is silicon so important in the manufacturing of computer chips? Is there any viable alternative? If not, why?

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What happens when we run out of it?

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Anonymous 0 Comments

Silicon is widely available and is the second most common material at 27.7% by mass in the earths crust, as a result it’s dirt cheap and perfect for most semiconductor applications.

There are many other semiconductors that can be used, germanium, silicon carbide, tin oxide, aluminium nitride among others and some of them have better performance than silicon in certain applications (germanium makes better solar panels than silicon).

But the deciding factor is cost, silicon is adequate for most applications that do not require specific properties so it is most widely used. If you require a minimum performance limit for an application and cost is not really an issue (such as solar panels for the ISS) then you would use the best material for the job, but for household solar panels silicon works well enough.

There are even materials called compound semiconductors which are essentially custom made materials for an application, but these are crazy expensive to make and can only be made in small quantities.

TLDR: Silicon is cheap as hell and adequate for most applications, including high end computer chips

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