Journal
IEEE JOURNAL OF THE ELECTRON DEVICES SOCIETY
Volume 7, Issue 1, Pages 100-110Publisher
IEEE-INST ELECTRICAL ELECTRONICS ENGINEERS INC
DOI: 10.1109/JEDS.2018.2882693
Keywords
Silicon carbide; high-temperature techniques; JFET integrated circuits; space technology
Categories
Funding
- NASA John H. Glenn Research Center under NASA Science Mission Directorate (High Operating Temperature Technology project)
- NASA John H. Glenn Research Center under NASA Science Mission Directorate (Planetary Instrument Concepts for the Advancement of Solar System Observations project)
- NASA John H. Glenn Research Center under NASA Science Mission Directorate (Long-Lived In-Situ Solar System Explorer project)
- NASA John H. Glenn Research Center under NASA Aeronautics Directorate (Transformative Tools and Technologies project)
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Prolonged Venus surface missions (lasting months instead of hours) have proven infeasible to date in the absence of a complete suite of electronics able to function for such durations without protection from the planet's extreme conditions of similar to 460 degrees C, similar to 9.3 MPa (similar to 92 Earth atmospheres) chemically reactive environment. Here, we report testing data from a successful two-month (60-day) operational demonstration of two 175-transistor 4H-SiC junction field effect transistor (JFET) semiconductor integrated circuits directly exposed (no cooling and no protective chip packaging) to a high-fidelity physical and chemical reproduction of Venus surface atmospheric conditions in a test chamber. These results extend the longest reported duration of electronics operation in Venus surface atmospheric conditions almost threefold and were accomplished using prototype SiC JFET chips of more than sevenfold increased complexity. The demonstrated advancement marks a significant step toward realization of electronics with sufficient complexity and durability for implementing robotic landers capable of returning months of scientific data from the surface of Venus.
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