NASA makes chip that can withstand weather conditions on Venus

Space agency NASA has developed a chip that can withstand the extreme weather conditions of the planet Venus for much longer than regular integrated circuits. The new chip can function 100 times longer under the conditions on Venus, according to NASA.

NASA has used silicon carbide in the tested chip instead of regular silicon. This is necessary because standard chips based on silicon withstand temperatures of up to about 250 degrees Celsius, but on Venus it can reach 470 degrees Celsius. Also, the atmospheric pressure is enormous; it is comparable to swimming in the ocean at a depth of 900 meters. At such high temperatures, the silicon loses its semiconducting property and the electronics stop working. NASA has published about this in a paper.

NASA has tested the innovations in the GEER, a space in which the space agency is able to mimic the extreme weather conditions of Venus. The NASA-tested circuit, an oscillator, remained intact and stable at 1.26MHz for the entire 521-hour test. However, it was an oscillator consisting of only twenty-four transistors. With this, NASA has tested a chip that is comparable to chips from the 1970s. Nevertheless, Philip Neudeck, a NASA engineer, is pleased with this result: “No one has ever kept chips working in these conditions for such a long time.”

This development should allow future Venus landers to function for much longer. The record is still held by Russia, which managed to let the Venera 13 lander survive on Venus for more than two hours. These types of landers, which are equipped with regular electronics, only last two hours, because the vehicles they are in are no longer able to protect against the high temperature and pressure after two hours.

A chip before and after a test that simulated Venus’ weather conditions.