I think that this is far from the first experiment in growing crystals in space, so they must have good evidence for what properties to expect from single crystal silicon grown in space, my guess is that the purity is not so much which elements are or are not included, but more the perfection of the physical crystaline structure, which may introduce the posibility of the crystal having different characteristics in different planes that can be exploited for various purposes.
UK company sends factory with 1,000C furnace into space
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Re: UK company sends factory with 1,000C furnace into space
#12I think that this is far from the first experiment in growing crystals in space, so they must have good evidence for what properties to expect from single crystal silicon grown in space, my guess is that the purity is not so much which elements are or are not included, but more the perfection of the physical crystaline structure, which may introduce the posibility of the crystal having different characteristics in di…
The crystal planes indeed do have different properties which are exploited already. Some planes have better flatness and defect rates then others, and etching rates and undercutting varies according to the surface orientation and the orientation of long thin details to the bulk lattice.
Silicon boules are grown with defined orientations. There's a system of flat edges ground into the wafers which indicate the orientation.
Re: UK company sends factory with 1,000C furnace into space
#13I'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 wi…
Something like a vacuum flask, I imagine. Vacuum is a very good insulator already and you minimise radiative heat transfer (infrared glow) by making a surface shiny and metallic usually (low emissivity)
Re: UK company sends factory with 1,000C furnace into space
#14I'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 woul…
In a way that's good because they don't need logistics for the entire supply and production chain up there, they can just drop the (small and presumably valuable) silicon crystals back to Earth.
Re: UK company sends factory with 1,000C furnace into space
#154000 times purer seems a questionable claim to me. 4000 times purer then what? Current Earthbound state of the art? A guy in shed with a vacuum pump and a heater? On what axis: crystal defects or contamination? High vacuums aren't at all impossible on Earth and silicon boules are already single crystals. What exactly about their process permits such a huge quality improvement?
The best silicon single crystals still contain impurities at the 1E-11 level. This project is about doing crystal growing in low gravity (the ultra-high purity is only achieved due to the growth process). The vacuum of space is a lot worse than what can be achieved in the lab, especially in low orbits.
Re: UK company sends factory with 1,000C furnace into space
#16I'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 woul…
Note that growing ingots is an incredible feat at that purity and size that they achieve on earth.
It’s already a very very hard step in a crazy process for entire chip manufacturing.
Re: UK company sends factory with 1,000C furnace into space
#17I'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 wi…
Something like a vacuum flask, I imagine. Vacuum is a very good insulator already and you minimise radiative heat transfer (infrared glow) by making a surface shiny and metallic usually (low emissivity)
If you have to bring your own vacuum flask, don't you lose half the benefit of doing it in space?
Re: UK company sends factory with 1,000C furnace into space
#18Earlier quoted context omitted.
Something like a vacuum flask, I imagine. Vacuum is a very good insulator already and you minimise radiative heat transfer (infrared glow) by making a surface shiny and metallic usually (low emissivity)
If you have to bring your own vacuum flask, don't you lose half the benefit of doing it in space?
Isn't the primary benefit the lack of gravity?
Re: UK company sends factory with 1,000C furnace into space
#19> "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, c…
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Re: UK company sends factory with 1,000C furnace into space
#20[dead]
This looks like an interesting comment, to me
But I'm having a hard time parsing it.
Is it a quote? Who is Moxley?
Where do the different statements begin and end?