1. Silicon can grow into large, pure single crystals with very few defects.
This means that many chips can be cut from a silicon wafer, reducing the cost of a single chip. Even if there are chips made of other materials with superior performance, if the price is too high, such as tens of thousands of dollars each, then their application in consumer electronics such as mobile phones will be limited.
2. The single crystal characteristics of silicon ensure the consistency of the performance of the manufactured transistors.
This is crucial for the consistency and reliability of the billions of transistors in modern chips, avoiding the problem of unstable transistor switching.
3. Silicon has good mechanical properties.
This allows silicon wafers to withstand handling and processing during manufacturing without breaking easily.
4. Silicon's oxide layer is an excellent insulating material.
The oxide layer naturally formed by silicon in the air not only protects the silicon wafer, but also performs well as a dielectric layer when manufacturing devices, with a large band gap, good band alignment, and few interface states, thereby achieving low leakage and high reliability.
5. Silicon has a suitable band structure.
Its moderate band gap makes silicon both conductive and insulative, unlike graphene, which requires complex band engineering to achieve a certain band gap.
6. Silicon is easy to dope, and can produce N-type and P-type semiconductors.
This allows silicon to conduct electrons and holes at the same time, and has good mobility, so that NFET and PFET can be produced to realize CMOS technology.
7. Silicon can be heavily doped to form a good ohmic contact and reduce contact resistance.
At the same time, silicon can also form metal silicides with metals such as Ti, Co, and W to further reduce parasitic resistance.
Silicon is a precious resource given to us by nature, and it is the only choice for semiconductor materials.
