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The world’s fastest transistor has been made at the University of Illinois. Capable of running at 604 gigahertz (performing 604 billion switching operations per second), it could pave the way for a new generation of super-fast computer chips. The tiny transistor, less than half a micrometre long, is made from indium phosphide and indium gallium arsenide. These are blended to make three separate layers that are sandwiched one above the other to form what is called a bipolar junction transistor (Applied Physics Letters, vol 86, p 152101).