--- title: Diamond Transistor | daily.dev description: Diamond Foundry, working with Stanford University, is developing transistors that use diamond as the semiconductor, claiming 50x faster switching. The... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/diamond-transistor-uadbusg9p twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: Diamond Transistor | daily.dev og:description: Diamond Foundry, working with Stanford University, is developing transistors that use diamond as the semiconductor, claiming 50x faster switching. The... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/diamond-transistor-uadbusg9p og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/UadbuSg9P.png og:image:alt: Diamond Transistor og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Diamond Transistor **[Hacker News](https://daily.dev/sources/hn)** · 2 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary Diamond Foundry, working with Stanford University, is developing transistors that use diamond as the semiconductor, claiming 50x faster switching. The transistors rely on surface transfer doping: a hydrogen-terminated diamond surface gives the material negative electron affinity, letting electrons transfer to acceptor species at the surface and leaving a two-dimensional hole gas a few nanometers deep. This produces p-type conductivity without ion implantation or lattice substitution, avoiding defect generation while preserving diamond's thermal conductivity and breakdown strength. The page lists matching silicon in subthreshold swing and supplies diamond substrates to R&D groups building their own diamond transistors. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Questions this post answers ### What is surface transfer doping in diamond transistors? Surface transfer doping induces charge carriers in a diamond semiconductor by terminating the surface with an atomic layer of hydrogen, which gives the diamond negative electron affinity and lets electrons transfer to acceptor species at the surface. This leaves a high-density two-dimensional hole gas within a few nanometers of the surface, producing p-type conductivity without ion implantation or lattice substitution, preserving the diamond bulk's purity and thermal conductivity. _Engineers evaluating next-gen power semiconductor options can track diamond transistor research like this on daily.dev._ ### How much faster is a diamond transistor compared to silicon? Diamond Foundry's all-diamond transistors, developed in partnership with Stanford University, are claimed to switch 50 times faster than conventional transistors, while matching silicon in subthreshold swing. The devices use surface transfer doping rather than conventional dopant implantation to achieve this performance. _Anyone comparing emerging semiconductor materials against silicon can follow developments like this on daily.dev._ ## Community take How the wider developer community reacted, aggregated from 1 discussion and 94 comments across hackernews (as of 2026-10-27). **TL;DR:** The discussion is mostly fascinated by diamond's material properties and the surface-doping technique, but many are skeptical about near-term practical viability given cost, history of unfulfilled promises, and unclear applications. **Sentiment:** 35% positive · 50% mixed · 15% skeptical **The case for** - 50x switching improvement could enable qualitative downstream applications even if costly today - Could be well suited for high-voltage, high-temperature, high-frequency, and space/radiation-tolerant applications where cost is less of a barrier - Diamond's thermal conductivity and lower thermal expansion could help with heat dissipation in power electronics - Lab-grown diamond costs have fallen dramatically over the past decade and could fall further if diamond transistors become useful **The pushback** - People have been hearing about diamond transistors for 30 years with little commercial progress, unlike SiC and GaN which are actually shipping now - Diamond wafers cost ~1000x more than silicon, raising doubts about real-world justification for the cost - Diamond is murderously hard to machine - Unclear what real-world applications actually need these properties badly enough to justify the expense - Some question whether there's genuinely new information in this announcement versus the project's prior updates **By community** - hackernews (mixed): Enthusiasm for diamond's remarkable material properties and the clever doping technique is tempered by skepticism about cost, scale, and whether this diamond-transistor hype will finally pan out after decades of similar claims. **Hottest debate:** Whether diamond transistors are a genuinely promising near-term technology or just the latest iteration of a decades-long unfulfilled promise given cost and manufacturing hurdles. **Open questions** - Is there any actual new progress/information in this announcement versus the project's prior updates from a year ago? - What real-world application will justify diamond's ~1000x cost premium over silicon? - How long does the hydrogen surface termination last before degrading? - Will diamond transistors actually reach commercial viability, or will diamond substrates (for heat dissipation) be the more realistic near-term product? **Highlights** > I'm seeing more Silicon Carbide and Gallium nitride transistors in shipping products over the last ten years. With the latter a lot over the last 5 years. I've only been hearing about diamond transistors for the last 30 years. > — [Gibbon1 on hackernews](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50255104) > Okay this is cool research just one tiny tiny microscopic question... why would someone use diamond wafer costing 1000x more than a silicon wafer??! :) > — [phegler on hackernews · 5 comments](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50247026) > Is there any new information here? They've been working on this for years and their last news post was almost a year ago. Is there progress? Is it viable yet? > — [driverdan on hackernews · 3 comments](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50254112) > For high-voltage applications (like power supplies) or high-power high-frequency applications (like radio transmitters) or high temperature applications (e.g. inside ovens or engines) silicon transistors are already in the process of being completely replaced by silicon carbide or gallium nitride transistors. Despite the fact that those are much more expensive than silicon transistors, they are so much better that their use saves money in other parts of the system in which they are used. Diamond transistors could be even better than SiC and GaN transistors, but there are many difficult technological problems that must be solved until being able to make commercial products. The linked page reports some significant advances, which avoid a source of problems in the past, which were caused by the poor behavior of dopant impurities inside diamond crystals. > — [adrian\_b on hackernews](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50249665) > Space. They are more resilient to radiation, faster, don't generate as much heat and are more tolerant of heat. That pretty much tells you where they're going to be used. > — [MarkusQ on hackernews](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50254812) **Source threads** - [hackernews](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50209525) · 141 points · 94 comments ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [Why Diamond Transistors Are So Hard To Make](https://daily.dev/posts/why-diamond-transistors-are-so-hard-to-make-uuzunh9p2) · Hackaday · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [Improving the performance of high-power electronics](https://daily.dev/posts/improving-the-performance-of-high-power-electronics-hrrbbsc1m) · MIT News · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [Quantum-Tunnelling Field-Effect Transistor Designed to Overcome Integrated-Circuit Chip Development Barriers](https://daily.dev/posts/quantum-tunnelling-field-effect-transistor-designed-to-overcome-integrated-circuit-chip-development--1sphzuoo9) · The Quantum Insider · 0 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#hardware](https://daily.dev/tags/hardware), [#science](https://daily.dev/tags/science) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/diamond-transistor-uadbusg9p) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"Diamond Transistor","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/diamond-transistor-uadbusg9p","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/diamond-transistor-uadbusg9p"},"datePublished":"2026-10-26T18:52:45.726Z","dateModified":"2026-10-27T15:02:55.199Z","description":"Diamond Foundry, working with Stanford University, is developing transistors that use diamond as the semiconductor, claiming 50x faster switching. 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