Simon Thomas knew the periodic table by heart at six. Now the Cambridge firm’s co-founder is putting his scientific brain behind graphene’s power to help us compete with China
The first thing visitors to Paragraf’s lab, in the Cambridgeshire village of Somersham, are shown is a thin disc made of synthetic sapphire with a piece of graphene taped on to it. This was the first graphene product the company made, and it quickly evolved to a small wafer of 64 tiny graphene devices arranged in a grid. These days, the company produces six-inch wafers that hold 9,000 chips.
Graphene, a 2D form of carbon, with the atoms arranged in a hexagonal structure, is mainly used to strengthen concrete and paints, but is now being touted as a replacement for silicon in semiconductors. China has started using it to get ahead in the global microchip wars.
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