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UK company sends factory with 1,000C furnace into space

39 points by vekerdyb

by Squeeze2664

0 subcomment

I'm only YouTube-level informed on how silicon manufacturing works, but something that is, perhaps intentionally, not made clear to someone unfamiliar with the field is that this is not manufacturing chips in space. This is to grow the crystals only, the very first step in silicon chip manufacturing. This is how you get the ingot, then you slice it to get the wafers upon which the chips are built. The reason you would even consider doing it in space in the first place is because, on Earth, gravity and other forces are stronger and result in lower-purity crystals. Basically, what I'm getting at, is that I believe this is pretty much a glorified oven. Moving the entire manufacturing process in space wouldn't make sense, as I don't think the benefits to other steps of the process like CVD would outweigh the insane costs of sending things into orbit.

by crote

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> "The work that we're doing now is allowing us to create semiconductors up to 4,000 times purer in space than we can currently make here today," says Josh Western, CEO of Space Forge.
> "This sort of semiconductor would go on to be in the 5G tower in which you get your mobile phone signal, it's going to be in the car charger you plug an EV into, it's going to be in the latest planes."
Okay, but, we have 5G towers, car chargers, and planes right now?
I understand that purer material is better, but to what extent are the impurities of current wafer production methods limiting us? Why is shooting the furnace into space the best option? Why is making wafers 4+ orders of magnitude more expensive the solution we should go for?

by MORPHOICES

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by tomatotomato37

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I'm curious what the thermal management system on this looks like. On one hand, vacuum being in essence a perfect insulator works in favor of keeping the silicon hot for the very long time it takes to pull a boule while requiring very little energy. On the other hand, you have to make sure the control electronics don't also heat up to 1000C. I'm also curious how you keep the molten silion separate from the crystal without gravity keeping it in the crucible. I bet a lot of interesting engineering going on here.

by VoidWhisperer

3 subcomments

One thing that is unclear to me from the article:
Is the idea that it will manufacture all of these chips and then both the 'factory' and the resulting materials will return from space, or that the factory would stay in orbit and send materials back?