...why do all the semiconductor fabs (as far as I know) manufacture on round wafers, when all chip designs (as far as I know) are rectilinear in shape? Is there not useless wastage around the edge of the wafer? ...why not have square wafers?
AFAIK, the round shape is due to the way they manufacture pure silicon - in the shape of cylindrical ingots. So they just slice a thin layer for each wafer.
Alternative To Silicon Chip Invented By Student what about gallium nitride transistors in 3-D Chips: IBM Moves Moore's Law Into The Third Dimension a 3d-chip format? or ditch transistors altogether and go for memristors?
