For first time, carbon nanotube transistors outperform silicon, by Adam Malecek. Sadly, Australia gave up on this sort of  stuff three decades ago.

As some of the best electrical conductors ever discovered, carbon nanotubes have long been recognized as a promising material for next-generation transistors. …

Now, for the first time, University of Wisconsin-Madison materials engineers have created carbon nanotube transistors that outperform state-of-the-art silicon transistors.

Led by Michael Arnold and Padma Gopalan, University of Wisconsin-Madison professors of materials science and engineering, the team’s carbon nanotube transistors achieved current that’s 1.9 times higher than silicon transistors. …

Carbon nanotube transistors should be able to perform five times faster or use five times less energy than silicon transistors, according to extrapolations from single nanotube measurements. … This advance could pave the way for carbon nanotube transistors to replace silicon transistors.

Australia was heading down this path, but stopped in the 1980s. Many Australians work in the chip industry, but not in Australia. I used to work in the chip industry in Silicon Valley.

Intel’s fabrication sites: