Silanes are silicon compounds and can be regarded as "silicon homologues" of alkanes based on a carbon skeleton.
The same applies to silanes in which one or more hydroxy groups are bonded to a silicon atom. Silanols are therefore the silicon analogues of alcohols.
Silanes have similar physical properties as the corresponding alkanes. However, there are considerably fewer silanes than hydrocarbons. So far, only unbranched and branched silanes with up to 8 silicon atoms are known. For cyclic silanes, compounds with 5 or 6 silicon atoms are known.
The simplest silane compound is the monosilane (SiH4).