Bring back thermionic valves I say!
But seriously, having such high-temperature electronics has some applications on Earth as well, maybe not as harsh, but for deep drills and around reactors, etc.
NASA boffins have found a way to make electronics that can survive on the surface of Venus, at least for a few weeks Venus is a hell-planet. It's about 460°C (860°F) on the surface. Atmospheric pressure is about 9.3 Megapascals, 93 times Earth's air pressure. Some clouds are rich in sulphur dioxide, which can produce rain of …
4H-SiC is the '4H' crystalline form of SiC, in case anyone is wondering, as you all are, I'm sure. It has more than 250 polymorphs!
(Wikipedia: it's great but consider the possibility of editorial bias and check out the quality of the references and always compare with another source of information.)
"Which will mean yet more Internet of Things hype about the vast amount of data collected by commercial aircraft."
Should be an great idea if you want to regulate fuel flow precisely, and also to give early warning of out-of-normal temperature and behaviours.
But it'll be nice to be able to seriously overclock your CPU without worrying about the need for coolant. Until you hit 500 degrees Celsius...
..from a simple oscillator to a working microprocessor, radio transceiver, and other circuits needed. Plus power supply, etc. And what do you solder it all together with as most solder melts at the temps present on Venus? I imagine silicon carbide chips will be useful for speciality applications, but we're a long way from a working probe.
That could work. The melting point of lead-free solder shoots up as it absorbs nearby metals, causing it to sometimes harden like crazy glue. A paste of metals could do that on purpose for high temperature electronics. For us here on Earth, it means prying your soldering iron off anything that has a porous copper surface.
It's time to go back and explore the surface of Venus, if only to get a clue as to what the hell is going on (or rather not going on) with that planet's internal heat engine.
Just getting a good look at some rocks would help - do they have any water or has it all been cooked out of the Crust into the atmosphere and then into space. If we can't find water, then perhaps that why there's no plate tectonics since partial melting of the Mantle is much harder. If there is - ummmm....
During the 1990s there were persistent reports that the Russians had a number of partially completed Venera probes waiting for the money to complete them. Since then, not a lot about surface exploration, NASA has proposed Venus In-Situ Explorer and Russia has the Venera-D mission - but neither has been approved as yet.
want to put the circuit in a toughened graphite box, and spray it with british roofing silicon, roofing silicon makes a easy job of holding down those tiles in the monsoon storms with 140mph + winds, board up a broken window with it, and you will pull the whole window out if you try and get the board off with a crowbar
its the ultimate in no more nails, see how long it lasts in a bath of acid, i know acid does'nt do too much to the silicon
like the standard silicone you get down a DIY store
http://www.ukfixings.com/product/342/203/Everbuild-Stixall,-MS-Polymer,-Adhesive-_and_-Sealant-Box-12?gclid=CKfxpNCMhtICFQ5mGwodPpMA7w
industrial grade is a lot better, and you use it to seal breaze blocks too, to make them water proof and less likely to crumble
to cut the story short, some adhesives can handle temperatures of upto 600c
http://www.masterbond.com/techtips/why-use-silicone-adhesive
One is a hard, crystalline metalloid element and the other is a polymer made up of chains containing atoms of said element alternating with oxygen atoms. Confusing them could have interesting results for chip manufacturers and breast implant patients.
"i know acid does'nt do too much to the silicon"
Silicone rubber is fairly resistant to acid at normal temperatures, but it's unlikely to survive heating to 500C.
They sure could use some rad-hardened ROVs ("robots") at Fukushima.
An earlier rad-hard standard was SoS (Silicon on Sapphire) in a ceramic package, which those of us who are earth-bound saw in RCA's 1802 (COSMAC) microprocessor - it has flown on satellites and deep-space probes, notably on Galileo.