We Finally Have a Computer That Can Survive the Surface of Venus (arstechnica.com)

Planet Venus is one of the most inhospitable places in the solar system. The surface temperature there is 470C (878F). This has been one of the key challenges that has prevented us from deeply exploring Venus. Normal chips can only function until around 250C, but it appears, we will soon have a computer that can withstand Venus' weather. From a report on ArsTechnica: Now, researchers out of NASA's Glenn Research Centre appear to have cracked the other big problem with high-temperature integrated circuits: they've crafted interconnects -- the tiny wires that connect transistors and other integrated components together -- that can also survive the extreme conditions on Venus. The NASA Glenn researchers combined the new interconnects with some SiC transistors to create a ceramic-packaged chip. The chip was then placed into the GEER -- the Glenn Extreme Environments Rig, a machine that can maintain Venus-like temperature and pressure for hundreds of hours at a time. The chip, a simple 3-stage oscillator, kept functioning at a steady 1.26MHz for 521 hours (21.7) days before the GEER had to be shut down.

Comments

Good to see equal sex computing...

[Oswald McWeany]

Since supposedly men are from Mars and Women are from Venus, it's good to see they've finally created a computer that can survive women.

/ sorry, I'm not really sexist

And Samsung will supply the batteries

[billrp]

That extreme pressure should keep them from exploding

Not the first.

[Gravis Zero]

470C? Oh please, my AMD chip runs at least twice as hot as that. ;)