WEBVTT

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Silicon Valley that part of California

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where CPUs are designed startups flourish and no one can afford to buy a

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house but did you ever stop to think about why it's called Silicon Valley why

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exactly does Silicon seem to be so universally used for electronics instead

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of some other material like copper graphite or potato well silic has a

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number of properties that make it unusual among chemical elements right

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now s ssts know of 118 elements and of

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those only six are commonly classified

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as metalloids silicon being one of them these metalloids exhibit metallik

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characteristics but aren't true metals

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usually they have a silvery shiny look like true Metals but instead of being

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malleable they're often quite brittle meaning they can break apart easily and

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although they can conduct electricity like metals they aren't quite as good at

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it which is where the word semiconductor comes from this semiconductivity is

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especially important because while obviously computers and other things

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that use microchips need electricity to run their whole principle of operation

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relies on being able to let electricity pass through certain transistors

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selectively which you can learn more about in this video a normal metallic

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conductor would let electrons through too easily meaning way too many

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transistors would light up at once and your CPU wouldn't be able to process

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instructions correctly which is okay if

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you want your computer to serve as a very expensive paper weight or a cheap

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one I guess as it were which is all fine and good then lonus but you still

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haven't answered the question why silicon specifically instead of some

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other semiconductor like geranium well

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although Silicon Valley might be an expensive place to live actual silicon

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is quite cheap and it's also pretty easy to find in the Earth's crust in fact

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silicon is one of the most common elements in the universe so it's fully

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possible that space fairing civilizations in some distant Galaxy are

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using silicon CPUs to play Plants versus

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humans or whatever silicon also has other benefits such as being able to

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operate well at a wide temperature range stock coolers am I right and it can be

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easily doped with other chemicals that are necessary for microprocessors to

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work for example it's quite easy to form an insulating layer of silicon dioxide

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just by sticking silicon into a hot furnace the tiny transistors in a CPU

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need insulated areas to further control and direct the flow of electricity with

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Precision so silicon's versatility makes it a natural choice but even though

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silicon has proven to be extremely useful it is not perfect although it's

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cheap and abundant there is a tradeoff with how quickly it can conduct

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electricity other semiconducting materials can move the electrons around

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faster meaning that they could be used to make higher performance processors

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albeit at a higher cost and another limitation of silicon will mean that it

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will not be the universal material in our processors for too much longer

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transistors keep being made smaller and smaller and smaller in order to make our

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chips more powerful and more power efficient but we're getting to the point

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where silicon can't be made into transistors much smaller than what we

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have already due to its chemical properties in fact Intel has already

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announced that for its 7 nanometer chips

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that could be released around 2020 it will be using something other than

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silicon to put that in context 7 nanometers is only about 35 atoms wide

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so there you have it while smaller transistors and faster CPUs may require

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more EX materials there's no doubt that

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the path to this future of tomorrow was paved with

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silicon I mean quite literally really if you think about it they used to use it

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in like Pottery in bricks they still do use it in bricks if you count like

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Minecraft speaking of bricks let's say

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you work as like a freelance brick layer

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or you do on the side computer work or you run a small dance studio out of your

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garage whatever it is that you do as a freelancer or small business buiness

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owner it shouldn't be wasting time with

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complicated accounting software and that is where freshbooks comes in freshbooks

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can even see when your client has seen your invoice and put an end to the oh

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did you send that to me ohg I guess I'll check with dill from accounting and see

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if we could pay that eventually no no wrong so fresh books is offering a

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do is head to freshbooks.com tequi and enter Techquickie in the how did you

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hear about us section so thanks for watching guys if you like this video

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like it if you disliked it dislike it if you want to check out other channels we'll have a featured video right about

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ways