Let's go to space to make chips.

Thanks to CTOnews.com netizens, assassins for their clues delivery! CTOnews.com, September 16 (Xinhua)-- although it sounds like science fiction, moving a semiconductor factory into space will become a reality in the near future.

There are many advantages in the production of semiconductor products in space, especially the production of 3D oxide-based variable resistance memory (RRAM), which can significantly shorten the production cycle on Earth and reduce production costs.

The difference between 3D semiconductor devices and traditional 2D RAM devices is that instead of using the traditional flat layout, the memory cells are stacked layer by layer, thus allowing for smaller footprint and more memory storage in a single device.

The main participants in the project include Ying-Chen Chen, known as "Daphne", which has joined academia and industry to develop a blueprint for building semiconductor devices in space. She is a professor at Arizona State University's Fulton School of Engineering and a co-lead researcher in the NASA study.

A researcher set up experimental equipment in space to understand the effects of microgravity brazing alloys. The project is funded by the CHIPS Act and NASA's In Space Production Applications program.

The project, led by lead researcher and NASA senior materials engineer Curtis Hill (Curtis Hill), uses space weightlessness to simplify or even bypass etching steps altogether. CTOnews.com Note: etching is a step in deepening grooves on the surface of a chip to leave enough space for its conductive metal contacts.

Scientists say that in the earth environment, the thin film material layer of semiconductor chips is usually thicker to compensate for the pressure from gravity, so it needs to be etched, while in the space weightlessness environment, a thinner film layer can be used in space. as a result, grooves are formed deep enough in the manufacturing process to bypass the etching steps.