silicon carbide semiconductors for venus

[Nuke]

https://spectrum.ieee.org/semiconductors/materials/the-radio-we-could-send-to-hell

apparently a lot of low level devices have been tested in a venus like atmosphere with very good results. big issue with a venus rover is electronics that can survive the environment, they seem to have solved that problems. granted you will need ceramic circuit boards with gold traces, its not going to be cheap. now you just need to solve all the other problems with a venus rover. 

[magnemoe]

2 hours ago, Nuke said:

https://spectrum.ieee.org/semiconductors/materials/the-radio-we-could-send-to-hell

apparently a lot of low level devices have been tested in a venus like atmosphere with very good results. big issue with a venus rover is electronics that can survive the environment, they seem to have solved that problems. granted you will need ceramic circuit boards with gold traces, its not going to be cheap. now you just need to solve all the other problems with a venus rover. 

You only need to handle the temperature, yes the pressure but that is pretty easy. The circuits don't need to face the atmosphere. 

[Nuke]

10 hours ago, magnemoe said:

You only need to handle the temperature, yes the pressure but that is pretty easy. The circuits don't need to face the atmosphere. 

it was as close to a venus analog as possible to create in a lab. pressure/temperature/corrosiveness and the electronics worked flawlessly for over a year. 

Edited May 4, 2021 by Nuke

[K^2]

Awww... Does that mean we aren't planning to send clockwork rovers to Venus anymore?

[Hannu2]

Fully mechanical robot is interesting idea. But the article did not tell anything about mechanical sensor technology. It is quite futile idea to make a rover which just run aimlessly until hits an obstacle. Sensors have to be electronic. Maybe some simple things, like temperature sensor and basic data processing would be possible mechanically but I can not imagine mechanical solution to analyze samples, see environment and react to it or receive commands from Earth.

[Starman4308]

6 hours ago, Hannu2 said:

Fully mechanical robot is interesting idea. But the article did not tell anything about mechanical sensor technology. It is quite futile idea to make a rover which just run aimlessly until hits an obstacle. Sensors have to be electronic. Maybe some simple things, like temperature sensor and basic data processing would be possible mechanically but I can not imagine mechanical solution to analyze samples, see environment and react to it or receive commands from Earth.

There was some thread here a long while back with more detail on the clockwork rover designs. Long story short, I'm pretty sure NASA was envisioning a hybrid, using clockwork wherever possible so as to minimize the need for proper electronics, which are going to be bulky, expensive, and slow.  Even with this, they've tested such amazing electronics as "4-bit multipliers", which suggests to me that we're not exactly going to be able to do optical hazard avoidance: a mixture of clockwork and high-temperature electronics is likely necessary.

[StrandedonEarth]

So, videos and pics will upload at 1 baud?

[Nuke]

13 hours ago, Hannu2 said:

Fully mechanical robot is interesting idea. But the article did not tell anything about mechanical sensor technology. It is quite futile idea to make a rover which just run aimlessly until hits an obstacle. Sensors have to be electronic. Maybe some simple things, like temperature sensor and basic data processing would be possible mechanically but I can not imagine mechanical solution to analyze samples, see environment and react to it or receive commands from Earth.

i think that the electronics tested would allow for tube based analog cameras to be driven. not sure how high temp the tubes can go but its definitely higher than silicon. 

[StrandedonEarth]

5 minutes ago, Nuke said:

i think that the electronics tested would allow for tube based analog cameras to be driven. not sure how high temp the tubes can go but its definitely higher than silicon. 

Hmmm, yes, considering vacuum tubes have glowy hot insides, the temperature shouldn't be a problem. The pressure, on the other hand, will require pretty thick glass on those tubes!

[radonek]

On 5/5/2021 at 8:08 PM, StrandedonEarth said:

So, videos and pics will upload at 1 baud?

Just like the old days...