Why silicon is preffered over germanium for fabrication of integrated circuits?
xprofessor Nov 23rd, 2008 For one thing, silicon is incredibly cheap and abundant compared to rare earth elements like germanium. I recall from decades ago that germanium diodes (now obsolete) have a higher forward-voltage drop at the PN junction — for silicon it’s only about 0.7 volts. I’d guess that silicon is also easier to form into single-crystal wafers, and easier to micro-machine. Like • Report No comments. Post one | Permalink Comments Add a comment…
