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

bbc.co.uk

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

#61

Post by stevenwoo »

RobotToaster wrote: post #26
guepe wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Leaving aside the small issue of getting there, wouldn't it be easier to achieve in space given there is fewer impurities like air floating around?

Even given that the sending finished products back to earth in same clean room conditions for next step seems challenging to make profitable. If it’s a proof of concept, okay, but to take it further the lithography step takes RV sized machines.

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

#62

Post by threethirtytwo »

wizzwizz4 wrote: post #60
threethirtytwo wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I should’ve specified corporate vs. academia. Those telescopes clearly aren’t corporate. More akin to academia. Corporations won’t go to space just for “science” and that is the case here.

That doesn't mean they're going to space for traditional profitability, though. The advertising budget is a classic example: none of those activities are profitable, but they alter market behaviour such that other parts of the company can make money.

Yeah going to space is not an "advertising budget".

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

#63

Post by skippyboxedhero »

VoidWhisperer wrote: post #2

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?

The idea is that they get government funding from credulous civil servants. There is no actual idea here, there is no business. The idea that a country that is unable to supply basic infrastructure is suddenly going to build CPUs in space is obvious bullshit.

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

#64

Post by rdiddly »

"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."

LOL! Talk about an anticlimax. Either this is a lack of imagination on the CEO's part, or he's dumbing it down for us, or that level of silicon purity/regularity, is one of those nice-sounding but impractical Platonic ideals that ends up being kind of a waste. But it, and/or solving the attendant problems, might be an important precursor for some future innovation.

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

#65

Post by wizzwizz4 »

threethirtytwo wrote: post #62
wizzwizz4 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn't mean they're going to space for traditional profitability, though. The advertising budget is a classic example: none of those activities are profitable, but they alter market behaviour such that other parts of the company can make money.

Yeah going to space is not an "advertising budget".

Which doesn't mean it's not another example of the same phenomenon. Many companies do things that are not, and will never be, profitable (in the traditional sense), because they have ulterior motives.

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

#66

Post by threethirtytwo »

wizzwizz4 wrote: post #65
threethirtytwo wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah going to space is not an "advertising budget".

Which doesn't mean it's not another example of the same phenomenon. Many companies do things that are not, and will never be, profitable (in the traditional sense), because they have ulterior motives.

False. The objective a company is to make profit, anything else is a side quest and is less relevant.

There isn’t an “ulterior” motive here. The motive is clear: profit. We just can’t pinpoint the exact pathway to it in terms of details.

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

#67

Post by marcosdumay »

tomatotomato37 wrote: post #8

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 wi…

Vacuum is only a nearly perfect insulator until a few hundred °C. After that, radiation dominates over every other form of heat exchange, and it stops making any difference.

A couple of meters long steel rod with a dissipator on the end can easily keep electronics at Earth surface temperatures even if you heat the other end to 1000°C.

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

#68

Post by marcosdumay »

MomsAVoxell wrote: post #48

This is really, really exciting. The moment this spark ignites, it will herald a new reality for industrialization of space, and I for one cannot wait to see it succeed. One of the things I truly believe will elevate our species is space industrialization. If, in 20 years or so, we send a fleet of space furnaces to 16 Psyche [1], there is a very real possibility that we will be able to move a lot of Earths heavy indu…

Research has gone this direction several times. Every time it did, ground factories discover some way to improve their quality so that space manufacturing became irrelevant again.

That's not to say it will happen again. But it's not a certain thing.

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

#69

Post by intended »

threethirtytwo wrote: post #29
PunchyHamster wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no reason to do it with current processes. It could possibly reduce defect rate/increase yields but I'm not sure impurities are even leading cause now. But we might discover other uses, that's what science is.

No way. This is being done because there’s a predictable path to profitability. It’s not just random shot in the dark science you can sometimes see in academia. It’s just this path isn’t clear to us laymen… I know because launching into space isn’t something that will be done just for science

I came across space forge due to some algorithmic discovery on YT a few months ago.

If I am recalling it correctly - They’re focusing on goods that can be made, that have a high $ value vs volume and density. High purity silicon is what they identified.

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

#70

Post by zdragnar »

mkl wrote: post #34
meindnoch wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>this is not manufacturing chips in space *crisps It's from the UK.

Chips are definitely a thing in the UK. Like French fries but usually chunkier: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fish_and_chips

What Americans call chips (potato or corn) the UK typically calls crisps.
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