Innovationspatents, processes, and products

Complementary logic devices — that is, devices that use currents both of electrons and of holes — have long been a goal of researchers designing gallium arsenide (GaAs) compound semiconductor devices. In silicon technology, the advent of complementary logic devices in the late 1960s cut those integrated circuits' need for power. Chips generated less heat, and so could be packed more closely together on a board for faster performance. Computers thus became at the same time more power-efficient, less expensive, and faster.