Engineers at the University of Southampton have developed technology to double the speed of chips commonly used in mobile devices.

The scientists have managed to boost speed for bipolar transistors to 110GHz, twice as fast as current records. 

Extra speed in the semiconductors has come from implanting a material called fluorine into the transistors to allow electrons to travel through them faster.

Businesses will get better performance in mobile and wireless devices at little extra cost, says professor Peter Ashburn, of the University's School of Electronics and Computer Science.

‘By using fluorine implants, the transistor can operate at a higher frequency which means it will be twice as fast as it was before,’ he said Professor Ashburn.

Ashburn and his team believe with further refinement they could get further speed increases.

The breakthrough provides an alternative to other materials like silicon germanium, which has previously been the main candidate for creating high-speed mobile devices, Ashburn says.

‘We have already beaten the world record, we have just improved the performance of silicon to a level which was only previously possible with silicon germanium,’ he said.

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Further Reading:

• Scientists achieve silicon breakthrough
• Silicon processor power reaches 500GHz
• Q&A: Intel UK managing director Rick Skett