
Armed with tough computer chips, scientists are ready to return to Venus - okket
http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/11/armed-tough-computer-chips-scientists-are-ready-return-hell-venus
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ejolto
Europe is also working on returning to Venus. Electronics meant to withstand
the conditions on Venus are being developed at KTH in Sweden[1]. They are also
Silicon Carbide based [2].

[1] [https://www.kth.se/en/forskning/artiklar/elektronik-som-
klar...](https://www.kth.se/en/forskning/artiklar/elektronik-som-klarar-
klimatet-pa-venus-1.590949)

[2]
[https://www.lpi.usra.edu/vexag/meetings/archive/vexag_14/pre...](https://www.lpi.usra.edu/vexag/meetings/archive/vexag_14/presentations/21-Zetterling%20-SiC-
Electronics.pdf)

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patall
Very interesting article. Does the fact that silicon carbide chips work at
more than 700K mean that we could built 3 dimensional chips with that (as
internal heating would be much less of an issue). I do not have insights what
really limits current silicon chips from exploring vertical stacking more but
would have thought that another dimension out-competes several orders of
magnitude in structure size differences?

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alphadevx
For those interested in a deep technical book on a previous mission (Magellan)
to Venus, I would strongly recommend "The Evening Star: Venus Observed", it's
wonderful: [http://amzn.to/2BgRXGW](http://amzn.to/2BgRXGW)

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Cthulhu_
Hijacking your comment to plug another good resource that describes the Venus
/ Venera missions in detail:
[http://mentallandscape.com/V_Venus.htm](http://mentallandscape.com/V_Venus.htm)

Good old fashioned web page, focused content, no weird js malarky, I love it.

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ars
I wonder how they plan to power the devices. Are there chemical batteries that
can handle such temperatures?

Is there a way to capture the heat or wind energy on Venus?

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pjc50
There are some kinds of battery that _only_ work at those temperatures -
molten salt batteries. Used on earth for a few types of missile and some grid
batteries.

The special chips described are silicon carbide; note the caveat of _much_
lower transistor density!

Remember that the Russians managed to get photos of the surface with 1970s
technology. One of the main obstacles seems to have been getting the lens caps
off the cameras once they'd survived the landing.

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hdhzy
> There are some kinds of battery that only work at those temperatures -
> molten salt batteries. Used on earth for a few types of missile and some
> grid batteries.

Not an expert in batteries but Wikipedia says molten salt batteries provide
high amount of power only for a short period of time:

> Once activated, they provide a burst of high power for a short period (a few
> tens of seconds to 60 minutes or more), with output ranging from watts to
> kilowatts.

Source: [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molten-
salt_battery](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molten-salt_battery)

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marcosdumay
Keep reading, until you get into the rechargeable configurations.

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hdhzy
Actually I read the rechargeable section but there is no explicit mention
there of how quickly does the rechargeable battery provide power. Is this
implied that it's not in quick bursts because it's rechargeable? Or maybe I
missed something? (I re-read the section again now).

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marcosdumay
Yes, there is no mention because it's not very different from other
technologies.

Molten salt batteries are mostly not practical (who wants to carry around some
explosives at boiling water temperature), but the single use cells get some
usage because of this feature. Rechargeable ones don't.

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digitalshankar
Hell is no problem for Science!

