Diamonds in Computers?

I reached the office early again today, so I decided to do a post. It seems weird that I've been reaching home late (around 11 pm) the past week or so and yet I've been arriving at office early. Haha. Actually the reason behind this is my mom. She set the clock at home faster than usual. So, each morning, thinking I'm running late, I rush through my breakfast and shower only to realise when I reach the MRT station that I am early, really early. How early? Well, early enough to reach my office by 8 am (my target is to reach here by 8.30).

Anyway, today's article is about Artificial Diamonds. The process of producing diamonds in a lab has finally been accomplished and these synthetic diamonds aren't lousy grade diamonds that can only be used for industrial purposes but gem grade. They are so good that they fool even experts. This is good news for us as it means cheaper diamonds (each costs only a few dollars per carat), but only if you are willing to buy the synthetic ones.

However, the greater implication of this is that diamonds may be used in computers! They work better as a semiconductor as they can withstand much higher temperatures than sillicon. But natural diamonds cost too much (who would want to buy a PC that cost $100,000 or more) and aren't consistently pure. Hence synthetic diamonds present a great possiblity for improving the semiconductor industry, as they can be made in the form of pure bricks!

Hopefully, in the near future, we will see Intel Diamond Pentiums and AMD Dimond Athlons for sale in Sim Lim Square. Then when its time to propose to your girlfriend, you can just take out your CPU, smash it, get the diamond out, and go mount it on a ring. Afterwhich, you can take the chance to upgrade your PC! :)

Aron Weingarten brings the yellow diamond up to the stainless steel jeweler's loupe he holds against his eye. We are in Antwerp, Belgium, in Weingarten's marbled and gilded living room on the edge of the city's gem district, the center of the diamond universe. Nearly 80 percent of the world's rough and polished diamonds move through the hands of Belgian gem traders like Weingarten, a dealer who wears the thick beard and black suit of the Hasidim.

"This is very rare stone," he says, almost to himself, in thickly accented English. "Yellow diamonds of this color are very hard to find. It is probably worth 10, maybe 15 thousand dollars."

"I have two more exactly like it in my pocket," I tell him.

He puts the diamond down and looks at me seriously for the first time. I place the other two stones on the table. They are all the same color and size. To find three nearly identical yellow diamonds is like flipping a coin 10,000 times and never seeing tails.

Click here for the full article.
(Note: Its a 6 pages long article.)