The Path Towards Realistic ASIC Electronics Deployment Into Previously Impractical Extreme Application Environments

Substantial expansion of the practical environmental envelope for integrated circuit (IC) operation offers important benefits to a variety of automotive, aerospace, deep-well drilling, and manufacturing applications [1]. ICs that can reliably operate for long time periods (years) in a harsh environment without degradation or need of diagnostic/maintenance intervention enable the largest benefits compared to IC technologies requiring added shielding, cooling, remote-location, maintenance, or other overhead to perform beneficial system functions. The ability to “cold-start” at low temperature (T ≤ −55°C) and continuously function through “warm-up” to extreme temperature is also important to most applications. Fig. 1 illustrates the massive difference between a Venus lander mission that relies on sheltering electronics from the caustic 91-atmosphere pressure 460°C surface environment (600 kg lander that returns data for less than a day) compared to the mission possible with electronics that can function for long duration without need of environmental sheltering (20 kg lander that operates for 60 days) [2], [3].