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NASA designs new, ultra-high temperature chips

arstechnica.com — NASA researchers have announced a new type of integrated circuit chip built on Silicon Carbide technology capable of operating in environments of up to (1,112 ° F). In testing, an SiC processor was capable of running at 500° C for up to 1,700 hrs without failing. NASA is calling this a major breakthrough, and a full 100x increase over current CPUs

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  • Noobuntu, on 10/10/2007, -0/+28Imagine one of those with some liquid cooling... insane overclock!
    • saleem, on 10/10/2007, -5/+2Silicon Carbide (SiC) dust is (ok my memory on this is 4 years old) toxic, so maybe you dont wanna be around it that long..

      from OSHA: "Excess mortality from asthma, emphysema, chronic bronchitis, pneumoconiosis and lung cancer among silicon carbide workers has been reported. "
      http://www.osha.gov/dts/chemicalsampling/data/CH_267100.html
      • sexybobo, on 10/10/2007, -0/+8arsenic isn't good for you ether and it is used in current chips. but it makes little differences after you encase it in ceramic.
      • obliviousfool, on 10/10/2007, -0/+7Isn't it used in sanding and cutting applications? Sometimes also in brake pads? Just don't sand your chips down and breathe the dust. That's all that means.
      • OrangeTide, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2Artificial butter flavor used on popcorn is not good for you to breathe in either. But as far as I know eating it doesn't pose a significant hazard.
        I don't find myself eating or inhaling my CPUs, RAM, etc. And there is a lot worse stuff than Silicon Carbide in those. Also the manufacture of our current technology of computers releases tonnes of toxins into the environment. You big cry baby.
      • andy3109, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1No dust...as SiO2, SiC will be encased in something analogous to a resist through lithography.
    • chris9902, on 10/10/2007, -1/+3wouldn't boil the water?
      • ToadLeg, on 10/10/2007, -2/+1if it would boil the water you just need to cool it more and cycle it over the processor faster. It actually takes a lot of energy to boil water, so there is little danger of that unless the pump or refrigerator stops.
      • Disjunto, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2i would be more worried about the pipe melting ;)
      • OrangeTide, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1boiling water would be an extremely efficient way to remove heat. And you could water cool the system without an electric pump then, using steam power! There is latent heat energy that is required to do a phase conversion on water into steam, which gets whisked away from the chip as the steam moves away.
        You could also just use material that doesn't boil so easily and that may only be liquid at >500°C. Lots of metal alloys that meet that requirement.
      • mcraigw, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1
        The chips don't get themselves that hot. The article says "technology capable of operating in environments of up to (1,112° F)". So you can build a computer that could operate on Venus.
    • jdavid, on 10/10/2007, -1/+4water does not really still cool at 500 deg. c, it never has a chance of condensing

      and at 1112 deg. F don't some alloys of aluminum start to melt?

      I think the biggest advantage of this is that we might be able to explore Venus.

      • ToadLeg, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2They didn't say that it HAD to be run at 500 C. It could just run for several hours at that temperature. Current processors would be melted before you got anywhere near 500C.
        • OrangeTide, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2Many processors halt long before that temperature too. Some chips can be exposed to a fair amount of heat, while they are not operating. but will fail to operate at those extended temperatures. It is amazing to have a chip that can actually operate at such extreme temperatures.
      • flashingcurser, on 10/10/2007, -2/+2PV/NRT

        Water will do fine at 500 deg depending on the pressure. Though the pressure that it would take to get water to condense at 500 deg would probably not work very well with 1/4" clear vinyl pipe.
    • BobOki, on 10/10/2007, -1/+1I think the general idea here is that current chips at higher temps start to fail, not nessesarily burn out, but fail, and reduce the life.
      If you make a chip that can run hours at 1000+ f, I doubt overclocking the piss out of it and having it hit 150-200 will be "no thang". They would have to reinforce the mobo socket, but hey, np.
      Another great application will be mobile devices. Being they are so slow right now, that is due to not being able to have it clocked high enough becuase of lack of cooling. If we no longer have to worry about the damn chip blowing, then we can start to double or tripple our speeds and thus actually having mobile devices that can run real applications. (VIVA LA WoW ON MY iPHONE!)
  • mysteri0usdrx, on 10/10/2007, -4/+9I think the more important application of this would be the lack of a need for a large heatsink/fan. think super high-clocked laptops using standard desktop chips.
    • Cabal, on 10/10/2007, -2/+17Yes, because I want my laptop to burn my hands when I hold it
      • andy3109, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1It's not meant for laptops. And it certainly won't run @ 500 C in your hands.
    • Shorties, on 10/10/2007, -3/+14No the real use for this is now Microsoft can make an xbox that wont get the red ring of death... :P

      Please don't kill me...
    • OrangeTide, on 10/10/2007, -1/+1You realize that 500°C would erase your harddrive, and boil away the lubricants that allow it to spin?
    • merreborn, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2"capable of running at 500° C" does not mean "produces 500° C heat". There's no reason to expect that this thing produces much more heat than existing chips.
      • Cabal, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1I realize you're talking to OrangeTide, but the fact remains that you will still need some sort of heat dissipation unless you want your laptop to be way too hot to handle. Higher temperatures in a case can cause damage to other components of the computer. Desktops would have the same problem.
  • duggtodeath, on 10/10/2007, -2/+24But won't that mean that the inside of my case will be hot enough to bake a turkey?
    • johndi, on 10/10/2007, -1/+20Multi-use appliances are all the rage today. Now we just have to learn to type while wearing oven mitts.
    • ToadLeg, on 10/10/2007, -1/+5They didn't say you HAVE to run it at 500C!
    • catalysis, on 10/10/2007, -1/+2I'm pretty sure these are not meant for desktop computers
    • rarson, on 10/10/2007, -1/+2Yes, which begs the question of when NASA will invent other components such as hard drives that will endure such heat.
  • barnis, on 10/10/2007, -2/+9"ummmm Space NACHOS"
  • dbizzell, on 10/10/2007, -8/+3Imagine those with some Pico de Gallo and a tall cool Budwieser.

    Heaven on Earth diggers.....Heaven on Earth.
  • daxsymbiont, on 10/10/2007, -9/+2they're so high temperature that if you got them in a pool, it'd evaporate. problem is, they explode instantly unless you carry a pool along with your laptop.
    • ToadLeg, on 10/10/2007, -0/+5are you all idiots? They didn't say they designed a processor that runs at 500C, it CAN run at 500C and not melt!
  • daxsymbiont, on 10/10/2007, -11/+1In other news, NASA EXISTS. That's right we can't have only 2 articles about NASA on the front page, who want to know about their latest toilet renovation?
  • Salp, on 10/10/2007, -2/+8Now all we need is ultra-cooled beer to go with those hot chips.
    • ToadLeg, on 10/10/2007, -4/+1holy crap why would you run a processor at 500C on Earth?
  • Authustian, on 10/10/2007, -7/+1So does this mean we can build 3d chips now?
    • uidzero, on 10/10/2007, -3/+5I don't know about your computer. But everything inside my case has 3 dimensions ;-)
      • andy3109, on 10/10/2007, -1/+1He is referring to chip stacking...something that can't be done right now b/c of EMI & heat.
    • geminitojanus, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2No. This will only be good for digital circuitry we want to put into space; because we can't vent heat into the air/water like on earth, heat builds up inside of space-bound computers. So the higher the operating temperatures they can withstand, the better.
  • Tiberiansun292, on 10/10/2007, -18/+3NASA spent millions. so they could use a pen in space. Russia just use a pencil.
  • Yondelldude, on 10/10/2007, -2/+5Great, now get them into the Xbox 360, ASAP!
    • OrangeTide, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1And put a slot on the top for inserting sliced bread.
  • drakethegreat, on 10/10/2007, -3/+1Assuming they do get all the components necessary to withstand that kind of heat (which would be fair to NASA since they were testing it already according to the article), I still don't understand how they would plan to use them in the casual commercial market. Mainly because nobody wants anything that generates that kind of heat in their house. That excludes power usage concerns. To me this seems like it would be restricted to extreme engineering environments but maybe theres something we don't know because that article was definitely vague on the details like most wannabe science articles on digg.
    • CarzorStelatis, on 10/10/2007, -1/+2Industry perhaps? 500 celsius aint that hot considering furnaces etc
    • mcraigw, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1"nobody wants anything that generates that kind of heat in their house"

      Where in the article does it say that the chip generates heat? The chip can withstand high heat, and probably doesn't generate any more heat than a standard processor chip. The article says "capable of operating in environments of up to (1,112° F)". The operative word here is "environments". It means that the chip could be used to build a PC that you put in a room where the temperature is 500°C, not that the chip would heat itself to that temperature. All the chip/.processor building companies are trying to find ways to build chips that use less energy and run cooler, why would NASA be doing the opposite? Answer: They aren't!
  • provost, on 10/10/2007, -1/+1what the article doesnt mention that I would be curious about is are these chips is power consumption.. are they talking about standard modern day chips with standard modern day power consumption just not using fans or heat syncs to cool them or are they referring to a new chip that uses a lot more power to run and thats why it gets so hot.

    Its very cool to see this exists and would be great for space travel I think.
  • deephole, on 10/10/2007, -2/+2This is great news for Intel/AMD, maybe they'll go back to making inefficient processors to burn more fossil fuel.
  • skyshock1, on 10/10/2007, -2/+2Better than lab-manufactured diamond chips?
    • artemster, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2Hellz ya. Better than Doritos as well.
  • Fizpez, on 10/10/2007, -0/+19I think the point - missed by most of the posters, is not that the chip generates that much heat but that it can operate at those temperatures.
    The surface of Venus is ~480 degrees C - so a chip that can still function at those temps would be necessary for any kind of lander that you want to last more than a few hours on the surface.
    • rheaume, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3Yeah digg down the smart guy, nice!
    • rarson, on 10/10/2007, -2/+2Chalk that up to the misleading title. "Ultra-high temperature chips" makes it sound like they actually operate at high temps, not endure them. The summary doesn't help either with sentences like "In testing, an SiC processor was capable of running at 500° C for up to 1,700 hrs without failing."

      I can see what they meant, but at first glance... well I guess people just need to RTFA.
  • jdavid, on 10/10/2007, -2/+2anyone want an easy bake computer?
  • Braingoo, on 10/10/2007, -1/+1Was i the only one thinking new super spicy doritos flavor.
  • minigamer1896, on 10/10/2007, -0/+5Now I can finally enact my plan of integrating the coffee-pot into the case!
  • RationalXubrnce, on 10/10/2007, -1/+3 Now instead of building PC's inside mini fridges we can build them in toaster ovens.
  • maninalift, on 10/10/2007, -1/+4This is not "100X" the temperature that chips normally operate at, it is 100X the centigrade value.

    To be 100X the temperature (i.e. for a given substance 100X the kinetic energy) it would need to be 100X the value as measured in *Kelvin* (or a proportional scale).
  • kinadian, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3I'd like to know what they mean by "a full hundredfold increase over current processors". If they mean 100x the temperature that is only 5°C - which is quite cold. It's not freezing but it's close. If they mean 100x the duration that means their current chips can run approximately 17hours at 500°C which I think it quite an impressive start. Especially considering current consumer chips cannot handle 1/10 that temperature for very long - if at all.
    • merreborn, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1"Especially considering current consumer chips cannot handle 1/10 that temperature for very long - if at all."

      50°C? I'm pretty sure they can handle that just fine.
  • tommyredcoat, on 10/10/2007, -0/+4This is the side of NASA that so many people overlook. The side that provides innovation that causes change down here on earth, and not just in space.
  • p51d007, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2Maybe they need to cover the bottom of the space shuttle with these ;)
  • koji29, on 10/10/2007, -0/+0I think Intel developed this a while back.. Pentium D I believe.
  • robszol, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2it doesn't necessarily CAUSE heat of up to that much, but rather it can operate in temperatures that high...so all of you talking about oven mitts...well you'll have to be in an oven first. In that case, you shouldn't be surfing for porn.
  • TopBanana, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3Great work guys, just one thig... how are you going to solder it in place? ;)
  • BrokenLegend, on 10/10/2007, -1/+0Does that mean that these chips could potentially resist an EMP?
  • CoskuT, on 10/10/2007, -1/+0They should try Jet Fuel.
    Zing.
  • rmeddy, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1Hope the XBOX 360 gets one.
  • Jaxxman, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3Now i can play WoW in hell!
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