CHINA JUST MADE THE WORLD'S FASTEST TRANSISTOR AND IT IS NOT MADE OF SILICON

Summary from the TLDR newsletter

A group of scientists at Peking University has created what they claim is the world's fastest and most efficient transistor. Made with a slender sheet of lab-grown bismuth and a new architecture, the two-dimensional, silicon-free transistor represents a radical rethinking of what chips can be and how they can be made. Chinese firms have been blocked from buying the latest silicon chip-making equipment due to ongoing US-led export restrictions, forcing researchers to find solutions from fresh perspectives. The team is now working on scaling up production - they used existing fabrication platforms, so the barrier to mass production may not be as high as with other experimental technologies.