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1. Say whether these statements are true or false.

1. Atlantis is the name of the U.S. marine exploration program. 2. The shuttle’s mission lasted for a fortnight. 3. There were four astronauts on board the spacecraft. 4. The crew brought back an ammonia pump that recently had failed on the station. 5. Nowadays the level of scientific understanding among Americans is very high. 6. The progress in medical science will slow down because of the loss of the program. 7. The Space Shuttle program has brought many problems that deeply impacted everyday lives of common Americans.

2. Give synonyms to the following words from the text:

exploration, to carry out, a shuttle, construction, spare, to eliminate, community, to include, miniature, environment, composite, to grow.

7. Ibm Cooks Up Super-Thin Graphene Chips

a circuit

схема

excess

надлишок

a wafer

тонка кристалічна пластина

a field-effect transistor

польовий транзистор

to grapple

боротися

complementary

додатковий

honeycomb

стільники

yield

виробіток, вихід

a flake

пластинка

elastic

гнучкий

a challenge

проблема, виклик

impermeable

непроникний

top-gate

верхній закрив

alumin(i)um

алюміній

Scientists at IBM have figured out a way to use graphene in the production of circuits. Graphene is an incredibly thin substance; in fact, it’s only a single atom thick. IBM researchers have demonstrated a graphene circuit which integrates all circuit components onto a single wafer made of silicon carbide. Integrating it monolithically – meaning in one unit – with other materials is a problem researchers have been grappling with since 2004, when the material’s properties were first demonstrated.

What Is Graphene?

Graphene is essentially carbon that comes in sheets one atom thick densely bonded together in a honeycomb crystal lattice. You can think of graphene as a plane of graphite – that stuff making up your pencil lead – which is one atom thick. In 2004, physicists at the University of Manchester and the Institute for Micro-electronics Technology in Chernogolovka, Russia, first isolated individual graphene flakes and measured their electronic properties.

About IBM’s Announcement

The integrated graphene circuit announced by the IBM researchers operates as a broadband radio frequency mixer at frequencies up to 10 GHz. Frequency mixers are used in all communications devices – radios, TVs, cellphones and radio satellites. The circuit announced by IBM is an analog circuit. It’s designed to work – meaning switch on and off – at 10 GHz, which is 10 billion times a second. IBM is working to improve on that.

Creating graphene circuits is difficult because combining graphene with other materials has slowed down the circuits. Wafer-scale fabrication of graphene has been one of the biggest challenges in realizing the promise of graphene electronics. To make the integrated graphene circuit, the IBM team first heated a silicon carbide wafer to release silicon and form a layer of graphene on its surface. The graphene film was allowed to grow to two or three layers in thickness, and then the silicon surface was heated to 1,400 degrees Celsius. Top-gated dual-fingered field-effect transistors were then integrated with aluminum inductors. Following this, the wafer was spin-coated with a thin polymer, and a layer of hydrogen silsesquioxane was applied to create active channels. The active channels were then carved by e-beam lithography, the excess graphene was removed with an oxygen plasma laser, and the circuit was cleaned with acetone. IBM’s circuit measures one square millimeter.

The Future for Graphene Circuits

CMOS (complementary metal oxide semiconductor) technology, which is currently used in integrated circuits, is rapidly approaching the limits of what it can do, and graphene is one of the alternatives being eyed as a replacement. However, the technology to produce graphene circuits is still in its infancy, and more work needs to be done to iron out the wrinkles. Among other things, the device yield rate needs to be improved. Using graphene in electrodes is the application that’s probably closest to commercialization. However, there are many other potential uses of graphene because of its uniqueness. Graphene is transparent like plastic but conducts heat and electricity better than metal, it’s an elastic thin film, it’s an impermeable membrane, and it’s chemically inert and stable, it will have a wonderful future.

Speech patterns

to be in smb’s infancy

бути в зачатковому стані

The project is only in its infancy.

Проект ще тільки на початковій стадії.

More work needs to be done.

Треба зробити ще більше роботи.

The rule needs to be revised.

Це правило треба повторити.

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