Space/Science — HabitableZone

Space/Science » in reply to I believe(?) most integrated circuits flake out at T > 100deg.C

re: integrated circuits flake out
Tom Brosz — (archived)

I think normal chip circuitry is out of the picture.

Nobody said you couldn't make a tube as thick as necessary. Or even out of normal glass. Standard tubes are made, like lightbulbs, no thicker than they have to be to withstand normal atmospheric pressure.

Are there substances that will still exhibit silicon transistor-like behavior at Venus temperatures? Obviously if we are working on circuitry that operates at these temperatures we are going to have to go back several decades in designs. Computers with doughnut memory cores, that sort of thing. Are there substances that still hold their magnetic alignment at these temperatures?

The "Red Hot Computer" problem might be a good challenge for those who know more about this sort of thing than I do. Fortunately, the pressure problem is pretty much a piece of cake, and if the pressure and temperature are equalized in the vehicle, we can keep the corrosive atmosphere outside.

Remember, the circuitry must still be able to lose heat by radiation to the Venus environment, which means that it must in fact operate at a higher temperature than the surface of Venus.

It may also be possible to build a refrigeration unit that would cool the system (given enough power) but it would require a cycle and refrigerants far different than what is normally used. Remember, a refrigerator operates by dumping heat into the environment, which means that the normally slightly warm refrigerator radiator coils in a Freon-type system would be replaced by something that radiates heat at temperatures hotter than Venus is. What compressible substance can do this?

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