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A New Computer Chip Could Finally Withstand The Hellscape of Venus (sciencealert.com) 67

Posted by BeauHD from the record-breaking dept.
Researchers at the University of Southern California say they've developed a memristor memory device that continued operating at 700 degrees Celsius. "And crucially, 700 degrees was not the limit, it was simply as hot as their testing equipment could go," adds ScienceAlert. "The device showed no signs of failing." From the report: The device is called a memristor and it's a nanoscale component that can both store information and perform computing operations. Think of it as a tiny sandwich with two electrode layers on the outside and a thin ceramic filling in the middle. The team built theirs from tungsten, the metal with the highest melting point of any element, combined with a ceramic called hafnium oxide, and with a layer of graphene at the bottom. Each material can withstand enormous heat. Together, they turned out to be extraordinary.

What makes graphene the key ingredient is the way it interacts with tungsten at the atomic level. In a conventional device, heat causes metal atoms to drift slowly through the ceramic layer until they bridge the two electrodes, short circuiting everything and leaving the device permanently broken. Graphene stops that process dead. Its surface chemistry with tungsten is ... almost like oil and water. Tungsten atoms that drift toward the graphene find they simply cannot take hold, no anchor, no short circuit, no failure. The team used advanced electron microscopy and quantum level computer simulations to understand exactly why, turning a single lucky result into a repeatable principle. The findings have been published in the journal Science.

A New Computer Chip Could Finally Withstand The Hellscape of Venus More | Reply

A New Computer Chip Could Finally Withstand The Hellscape of Venus

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  • Now all you have to do is figure out how to make solder joints that work at that temperature.

    Yeah I know there are metals that would be candidates for that, but the fabrication process will be exotic, to say the least.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by drnb ( 2434720 )

      Now all you have to do is figure out how to make solder joints that work at that temperature. Yeah I know there are metals that would be candidates for that, but the fabrication process will be exotic, to say the least.

      Steel based circuits and solder? Glass based circuit boards?

      Maybe exotic as in different and expensive, not necessarily rare materials?

      • >Steel based circuits and solder? Glass based circuit boards?

        Both steel and glass expand massively with higher temperature. Anything to mount these components on will need to have a heat-extension factor close to the components - and even more to the hypothetical solder. Hypothetical because they most certainly will have to find something less temperature dependent.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by drnb ( 2434720 )
          Well if we stick to 1970s Soviet era electronics, maybe we can manage steel and glass. :-)

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by tragedy ( 27079 )

          Or you just keep them wrapped in insulation with a heater keeping the electronics at Venus temps from the moment they are manufactured until they land on the surface, at which point you shut off the heater. The temperature on Venus, while super hot, is also very stable. You just have to maintain that stability before it gets there.

    • Weld the joints?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by HiThere ( 15173 )

      OTOH, that's a hot enough temperature to make Data Centers in orbit seem a lot more practical. Just because you *can* run a 700C doesn't mean you need to. I wonder how radiation hardened a chip with that technology would be.

    • To be honest, going to Venus is a pretty exotic venture.

    • Yeah I know there are metals that would be candidates for that, but the fabrication process will be exotic, to say the least.

      It will, but the main limiting factor on solder temperature is component temperature, since the heat travels into the components...

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by tragedy ( 27079 )

      Now all you have to do is figure out how to make solder joints that work at that temperature.

      I would say that's probably not such a huge challenge since silver solders melting points start around 618 Celcius and the temp on Venus is actually "only" around 464 Celcius. As a general rule, you don't want a solder too close to its melting point for both electrical and mechanical reasons, but that seems far enough away to be reasonable.

      I am wondering though if, even if these chips can take the temperature, if the combination of temperature and pressure might not be an issue. Of course, you could deal wi

  • Analog also works! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by cusco ( 717999 ) <brian DOT bixby AT gmail DOT com> on Tuesday April 14, 2026 @11:52AM (#66093376)

    There is already a model for a rover to operate on Venus, but of course the herd of technophobic lawyers in Congress won't fund development. The joys of letting lawyers run what should be an engineering program.

    https://spectrum.ieee.org/jpl-... [ieee.org]

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      all of congress is not the same. trump cut JPL in his big defecit explosion bill and wants to cut nasa budget even more. 100b for ice but nasa gets cut to the bone

      stop blaming all of congress and stop giving yourself excuses to continue voting republican and pretending that its just inevitable. you're part of the problem. yelling "both sides" is just mental opiate for narcissists

    • It's not just the heat... it's the acid rain and the extremely thick atmosphere (92 times that of Earth).
      Sure, maybe we can put a rover there, and it'll work long enough to send some data back, but it's far, far too harsh for humans to ever set foot on.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by cusco ( 717999 )

        Acidic conditions they can deal with, mostly by being very selective with materials. The pressure isn't a big issue, it's equivalent to about a kilometer under the ocean, and we have been running ROVs below that for a long time. The temperature really is the issue, if there were any lakes on Venus they'd be made of lead.

        • "Daddy! Can we go for a swim?"
          "Not yet... we have to wait for the boils and wounds to heal after we had to chisel you out of the lead last time."
          "But... dad!"
          "Just go play with your Venusian dogs!"

          An ROV submersible half-mile underwater is one thing... on a good day, a radio signal to Venus would take ~80 seconds (on average). And, the pressure would superheat the Rover Dispenser (maybe melt the Dispenser) that dispenses the rover as it slams into a super dense atmosphere.
          Unless they come up with a new me

        • Easy - just design a motherboard and chip that heats up to 1000C, then you can use the ambient environment there for cooling!

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by tragedy ( 27079 )

        To be clear, there is no acid rain at the surface of Venus. It can be corrosive for other reasons, but not from acid rain.

    • There is already a model for a rover to operate on Venus...

      I like this one better: Venus Rover Design Study [aiaa.org], AIAA SPACE 2011 Conference & Exposition.

      (alternate source: https://www.researchgate.net/p... [researchgate.net] )

    • That was a fascinating read, thank you for posting the link - especially the ideas for motion and transmission of data to space.

      I'm not sure how they'd process and analyze samples and transmit results, but things temperature, pressure, and wind speed seem like relatively easy wins once you have the radar reflector idea in play.

  • Memristors are (potentially) awesome (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Baron_Yam ( 643147 ) on Tuesday April 14, 2026 @12:14PM (#66093406)

    They can be processor, they can be storage, they can be combined to create more efficient transistors, they can handle more than binary states. They're essentially a hardware-implemented neural net node and I am still waiting to see someone manage to use them for that.

    I suppose a Venus-tolerant surface probe would be pretty impressive too. Or a home computer that didn't fry itself if the cooling fan seized.

    • Not needing a cooling fan because the temperatures could rise enough that passive cooling would become effective without many pounds of heat sink would be an even bigger win.

      • What? Passive cooling (without fans or something) becomes more effective because of high temps (I think that's what you were trying to say)?
        It'd be interesting to see how many seconds the chips and everything last before melting or evaporating (will it catch fire?).
        If you're so confident that high temps and passive cooling are good for chips and such, take the heatsinks off everything in your computer, and do the same with your XBox (or PS5)... see how long they run before glitching or shutting down.

        • What? Passive cooling (without fans or something) becomes more effective because of high temps (I think that's what you were trying to say)?

          That is correct, because delta T is the most important factor in thermal transfer. Thanks for getting it.

          If you're so confident that high temps and passive cooling are good for chips and such, take the heatsinks off everything in your computer

          Oh fuck, I forgot, you're stupid.

        • Today, the chips die somewhere around 200 to 300 ÂC after a few hours, if nothing else gives out first. Indeed, if all components and connectors could withstand much higher temperatures, one could reduce the size of heatsinks drastically.

          Source: I've worked with and designed high temperature electronics, highest temps my colleagues had electronics for was 250 ÂC, obviously for a limited lifetime of 1000 hours. I've also done chip design for mobile phones, where I experienced the torture testing

  • NetBurst (Score:5, Funny)

    by bill_mcgonigle ( 4333 ) * on Tuesday April 14, 2026 @12:22PM (#66093420) Homepage Journal

    I had a Pentium IV that operated at 700C.

  • One of the big problems with data centers is the power required for cooling all of those servers. Wouldn't it be great if we didn't have to worry about that so much? Instead of high-power air-conditioners, we could just use big fans. Further, aren't these new devices more efficient with power? That would be a further gain.

    • More efficient with power use, yes.
      But, put 2 dozen in a server rack, and you have a space heater!
      Yeah, turn your data center into a wind tunnel!

      • That sounds awesome actually. Today there's waste in data centers (i.e. the chips create heat as a byproduct, which causes problems for the chips, so we use more power to cool everything down). If we could let everything run at their naturally high temperature, you not only don't need to cool it down, but can recapture some of the heat to "recycle" the initial power! One can dream...

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by chefren ( 17219 )

          Well technically to capture the heat you have to move the heat away from the chips to heat up something you want to heat up instead. The first part of that process, capturing heat from chips is in fact the same as cooling them. So the data centres are already doing half of the job (at least half of their part).

          What remains is to channel the captured heat into a medium that can transport the heat away to where it's needed. E.g. something hot liquid in pipes moving the heat to nearby apartment blocks and the

    • Are you a small businessman? Do you own a chain of pizza restaurants? Are you fed up of having to have both pizza ovens AND computers in your strip mall locations, taking up space?

      Introducing the Athlon IV Combined Pizza Oven and Office Computer! Now while you're doing your accounts, accepting online orders, and otherwise computering, you can heat up your pizzas to 700 degrees with the exact same device!

      With its patented technology, developed for the last 20 years by former engineers of computer giants Inte

  • Its the main issue with any Venus probe. How to power everything without melting.

    • Maybe some kind of Peltier-style device (made with the right materials) could generate enough power, and that power could run an internal cooling system and the computers and radios and drive system.

      We already know quite a lot about Venus... sending a little Mars rover-style thing sounds like a waste. What will it find, that the environment is hostile and harsh? We knew that. It'll get us a better picture of the nothingness that the surface consists of... awesome!

      There's no chance that humans are ever go

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by tragedy ( 27079 )

      Depending on the scale of your operation, there is always the possibility of an HVDC cable from around 50+ KM. With the heat, etc. it would lose a fair amount of power before it got to the ground, but it would mean you wouldn't need special batteries.

  • Isn't the surface of Venus highly-acidic thanks to sulphuric acid rain?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by pz ( 113803 )
      Apparently the rain doesn't reach the surface. But it is still only slightly less hellish on the surface for the lack of droplets of concentrated sulfuric acid pelting down.

      • Okay, so they can use an ablative layer for insertion. After that it's just the extreme heat and pressure.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by tragedy ( 27079 )

          Insertion is absolutely not an issue. You can slow something right down using the same techniques as in Earth's atmosphere in the upper levels of the atmosphere of Venus before you get to the hell layers. Then you just drop from there. You don't even need a parachute since the atmosphere is so dense. As you said, it's the extreme heat and pressure. Of course you were also right about the derisiveness, just not from acid rain. Other things that would not be problematic at Earth pressures are corrosive on Ven

  • ....there is a place for a memristor in each kitchen oven! And if they are cheap enough, they could be integrated directly into meat to be roasted on the BBQ, to check the doneness degree [wikipedia.org].

  • Other uses (Score:3)

    by HotNeedleOfInquiry ( 598897 ) on Tuesday April 14, 2026 @04:36PM (#66093796)
    These would be very useful in geothermal well data loggers. The current technology uses 100 degree C parts inside a thermos container. I presume there are deep oil wells that can also use high temperature data loggers.
  • It's only radiation resistant to 3.6 Roentgen according to our measurements though

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by tragedy ( 27079 )

      Among the ways that the surface of Venus is a hell world, being radioactive is not one of them. It's exactly the opposite.

  • Why go to the surface at all? You can float a lighter than Venusian atmospheric pressure vessel at the top of the atmosphere and have better radio contact with Earth as well. It is quite temperate and cool and up there and the denser atmosphere reduces the size of the pressure vessel needed to get buoyancy. Drag a folding parachute into the atmosphere to slow down from trans orbit speed and then use it as an aerial.
  • These rudimentary chips have been a available in Silicon over Sapphire, and have been used in several spacecraft and satellites--including the Hubble. Oddly, it was the first CMOS chip, and can be clocked down to almost nothing.
    Ref: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
    IPS: https://github.com/amsat-dl/IP... [github.com]

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