Silicon vs. Germanium — What's the Difference?

Silicon is a chemical element with the symbol Si and atomic number 14. It is a hard, brittle crystalline solid with a blue-grey metallic lustre, and is a tetravalent metalloid and semiconductor.

Germanium is a chemical element with the symbol Ge and atomic number 32. It is a lustrous, hard-brittle, grayish-white metalloid in the carbon group, chemically similar to its group neighbors silicon and tin.

A nonmetallic element occurring extensively in the earth's crust in silica and silicates, having both a brown amorphous and a gray lustrous crystalline allotrope, and used doped or in combination with other materials in glass, semiconducting devices, concrete, brick, refractories, pottery, and silicones. Atomic number 14; atomic weight 28.086; melting point 1,414°C; boiling point 3,265°C; specific gravity 2.33 (25°C); valence 2, 4. See Periodic Table.

A brittle, crystalline, gray-white metalloid element, widely used as a semiconductor, as an alloying agent and catalyst, and in certain optical glasses. Atomic number 32; atomic weight 72.64; melting point 938.3°C; boiling point 2,833°C; specific gravity 5.323 (at 25°C); valence 2, 4. See Periodic Table.

A nonmetallic element (symbol Si) with an atomic number of 14 and atomic weight of 28.0855.

A nonmetallic chemical element (symbol Ge) with an atomic number of 32: a lustrous, hard-brittle, grayish-white metalloid in the carbon group.

A single atom of this element.

(countable) An atom of this element.

(slang) computing

A rare element, discovered in 1885 in a silver ore (argyrodite) at Freiberg. It is a brittle, silver-white metal, chemically intermediate between the metals and nonmetals, resembles tin, and is in general identical with the predicted ekasilicon. Symbol Ge. Atomic number 32. Atomic weight 72.59. It has excellent semiconductor properties, and is used in transistors and diodes.

(slang) computer processor

A brittle gray crystalline element that is a semiconducting metalloid (resembling silicon) used in transistors; occurs in germanite and argyrodite

Abbreviation of silicon chip

A nonmetalic element analogous to carbon. It always occurs combined in nature, and is artificially obtained in the free state, usually as a dark brown amorphous powder, or as a dark crystalline substance with a meetallic luster. Its oxide is silica, or common quartz, and in this form, or as silicates, it is, next to oxygen, the most abundant element of the earth's crust. Silicon is characteristically the element of the mineral kingdom, as carbon is of the organic world. Symbol Si. Atomic weight 28. Called also silicium.

A tetravalent nonmetallic element; next to oxygen it is the most abundant element in the earth's crust; occurs in clay and feldspar and granite and quartz and sand; used as a semiconductor in transistors