Orbital Microfabrication

Fabricating microchips and semiconductor crystals in microgravity to benefit from the different physical behaviors, ultra-high vacuum, and other advantages. Microgravity-grown crystals have increased crystal size and suppressed impurities and defects.4

Updated: 2024-02-24

Created: 2018-12-07

Status

As of 2023, this field is strongly reemerging.

In March 2023, "The Workshop on Semiconductor Manufacturing in the Space Domain" was held at Stanford.
In November 2023, a white paper was published: Frick, J., Kulu, E., Rodrigue, G., Hill, C., & Senesky, D. (2023, November 8). Semiconductor Manufacturing in Low-Earth Orbit for Terrestrial Use. Retrieved from osf.io/d6ar4.

Terrestrial microfabrication techniques are difficult to transfer into microgravity. New methods have been and are being developed and some have been tested on a small-scale in space.

Microgravity Research Associates was founded in 1979 to produce gallium arsenide chips. Made in Space was selected by NASA in 2020 to develop autonomous semiconductor chip manufacturing.

Applications

  • Gallium Nitride (GaN)
  • Gallium Nitride on diamond (GaN-on-diamond)
  • Gallium Arsenide (GaAs)
  • Silicon Carbide (SiC)
  • Space-based microsensors
  • Solar cells
  • Radiation detectors

Why & Solution

Semiconductor microchips are high value per mass products whose fabrication requires many of the resources available in low-Earth orbit. It is hypothesized that orbital fabrication of silicon microchip devices may be more economically attractive than traditional Earth-based fabrication based upon the inherent advantages of the space environment: vacuum, cleanliness, and microgravity.3

Gallium nitride, used to make LEDs, is difficult to solidify in large amounts at a time because its two constituent molecules don't always bind perfectly in order, leading to defects. Reducing the movement of the melted fluid as hotter and less-dense fluid rises, which occurs because of gravity, can decrease those defects — as can preventing the highly reactive substance from touching the sides of its container, according to Randy Giles, chief scientist at the Center for the Advancement of Science in Space. Someday, substances like that could benefit from in-space creation.2

Using orbital vacuum for enhanced semiconductor fabrication was pioneered in the Wake Shield project which produced ultra-high vacuums for epitaxial growth of high quality GaAs like materials. A proposed alternative uses the native Low Earth Orbit vacuum levels to achieve the silicon microfabrication processes needed for manufacturing silicon microchips. However standard terrestrial fabrication techniques are difficult to transfer into the microgravity and vacuum environment of space.  They are optimized for using in-situ resources: water, power, air pressure and gravity that are plentiful on Earth.  An alternative microfabrication process has been developed using the native vacuum environment which could replace wet terrestrial based microfabrication, with significant savings in equipment size, mass and consumables, while reducing cycle time.3

It is found that by developing new, dry processes that are vacuum compatible, fabricating semiconductor devices in orbit is both technically and economically feasible.  The outcome is a synergistic, orbital-based methodology for micro-fabrication capable of building and delivering commercially marketable microfabricated structures.  The base case modeled, production of 5,000 ASIC wafers per month, indicates that orbital fabrication is 103% more expensive than existing commercial facilities.  However, optimization of process parameters and consumable requirements is shown to decrease the cost of orbital fabrication dramatically.  Modeling indicates that the cost of orbital fabrication can be decreased to 58% that of an advanced, future Earth-based facility when trends of increasing process equipment costs and decreasing orbital transport costs are considered.3

Taking advantages of microgravity environment, amorphous semiconductors made a remarkable improvement both in quality and quantity. Space is considered to be a favorable environment for many things including the followings that were investigated: semiconductor joining by atomic adhesion, fabrication of thin films of diamond and amorphous silicon alloys, CVD processes, production of super-minute grains, light element analysis by SIMS (Secondary Ion Mass Spectrometry), and anti-proton generation by laser accelerators. This report reviews the potentials of material processing in space. Processing technologies of spacecraft construction materials, thin solid films, and fine alloys are reviewed. Light element analyzing method and antiproton storing technology for liquid metal MHD (Magnetohydrodynamic) power generator are also reviewed.5

Made in Space was selected to develop an autonomous, high throughput manufacturing capability for production of high quality, lower cost semiconductor chips at a rapid rate. Terrestrial semiconductor chip production suffers from the impacts of convection and sedimentation in the manufacturing process. Fabricating in microgravity is expected to reduce the number of gravity-induced defects, resulting in more usable chips per wafer. Market applications include semiconductor supply chains for telecommunications and energy industries. 

Butler University published "An Analysis of Publicly Available Microgravity Crystallization Data: Emergent Themes Across Crystal Types" in 2022 and continues to update the publicly available survey data.

Semiconductor Manufacturing in the Space Domain Workshop, 2023

Industry leaders gathered at Stanford University in March 2023 at the inaugural Semiconductor Manufacturing in the Space Domain Workshop to discuss the past, present, and future of the field.

Companies



Blue Origin page at Factories in Space

Vision to enable a future where millions of people are living and working in space to benefit Earth. In order to preserve Earth, Blue Origin believes in the need to enable humanity to expand, explore, find new energy and material resources, and move industries that stress Earth into space.

ISRU

Since 2021, Blue Origin has been making solar cells and transmission wire from regolith simulants. We have pioneered the technology and demonstrated all the steps. Our approach, Blue Alchemist, can scale indefinitely, eliminating power as a constraint anywhere on the Moon.

Blue Origin is hiring two full-time engineering positions completely focused on ISRU for the Moon and beyond.

In 2018, NASA has set up three research tracks as part of its public-private NextSTEP-D program. “NextSTEP” stands for “Next Space Technologies for Exploration Partnerships.” The D refers to Appendix D of the NextSTEP-2 program description, which focuses on ISRU technologies.

NASA has selected 11 U.S. companies to develop technologies that will support long-term exploration on the Moon and in space under its sixth Tipping Point opportunity.


Faraday Technologies page at Factories in Space

Faraday Technology will create an in-space manufacturing process to directly print next-generation covetic materials (nanocarbon-infused metals/alloys) in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) via an electro-co-deposition approach to leverage the unique capabilities of the International Space Station (ISS).

LEO Manufacturing of 3D Printed Covetic Nanomaterials for Advanced Electronics

This program will develop an in-space material manufacturing approach to leverage the unique capabilities of the International Space Station.

Specifically, one such, exemplar novel class of material, covetics (nano-carbon-infused metals), are inherently challenging to produce terrestrially but have great commercial potential due to their enhanced physicochemical properties as compared to conventional metals, such as high thermal (50% higher than Cu), high electrical conductivity (40% higher than 6061 Al), and high strength (30% higher yield strength than Cu).

Therefore, Faraday Technology and the University of Texas in Dallas will develop a material manufacturing process to directly print these next generation covetic materials in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) via an electro-codeposition approach.

This work will build on the University of Texas's direct Cu printing platform which has been demonstrated at pre-commercial scale the potential to print large area circuit board lines utilizing a localized pulse electrodeposited (L-PED) technique.

Additionally, this work will build on Faraday's electro-code position process activities that include depositing carbon materials into copper. In Phase I we will establish the viability of directly printing covetic materials by developing the direct write hardware and the electro-codeposition electrolytes to deposit electrochemically reduced carbon materials into a copper matrix in an orientation opposite or perpendicular to gravity such that we can demonstrate at the lab scale, the potential to form covetic materials with enhanced electrical, thermal, and mechanical properties.

This demonstration would enable a preliminary market need assessment (Phase I) and zero gravity flight demonstration (Phase II), which could establish a commercial market for in-space manufacturing of these exciting covetic materials. If successful the results of the Phase I/II program will set the stage for LEO commercialization of this manufacturing process.


G-Space page at Factories in Space

G-SPACE Inc is a one-stop shop platform to design microgravity products for orbital microfabrication. The company offers services such as microgravity product design, optimization of the microgravity manufacturing process, and insights into customized market data for in-space manufacturing. If you are not sure where to start with microgravity and in-space manufacturing, the company will provide the most optimum starting point for microgravity fabrication at savings of 10X.

Design and test your materials, manufacturing processes and experiments before leaving the atmosphere using our AI-powered SaaS platform, ATOM™.

G-Space aims at developing the ability to identify, define, and optimize the precise operational spectrum for space manufacturing to ensure manufactured products are at their highest quality and performance.

G-Space’s long-term vision is to move polluting manufacturing off the surface of the Earth into its orbits.

G-Space, Inc. brings exclusively to the US market a suite of Heavy Metal Fluoride (ZBLAN, InF3, etc.) from our French partner Le Verre Fluoré.

MERCURIA is a market optimization engine uniquely constructed to provide estimates of addressable market sizes for in-space manufactured products with terrestrial demand. The software tracks product superiority, manufacturing process scalability and standardization, and sustainability opportunities (greenhouse gas emission, etc) along realistically constructed commercialization timelines for in-space manufactured products.

ATOM

NASA SBIR award in 2020 for Advanced Terrestrial to Orbital Manufacturing (ATOM) platform that builds on a terrestrial experimental technique, Gravity Elimination via Methods of Suspension (GEMS), enhanced through the addition of first-principles modeling, computational tools, and machine learning algorithms.

  • G-Space is the only commercial company that provides a tool in advanced material manufacturing that harnesses the effect of gravity on material stability and narrows down the optimized 0G manufacturing envelope. 
  • The main objective of this SBIR Phase I is to develop a conceptual design of GEMS and to complete the buildout and beta testing of the ATOM platform, including a data manager, analysis and reporting system.
  • The resulting platform will be validated using primarily in-house Heavy Metal Fluoride Glass data. In addition, the platform will be expanded to ingest selected material data from NASA’s Microgravity Database as well as an additional suite of high profit margin materials with potential for fabrication in a zero G environment.

Demo video for ATOM AI-powered SaaS Platform for accelerating in-space manufacturing by designing with gravity here on Earth.

NASA’s Physical Sciences Research Program has selected five ground-based proposals in response to the Physical Sciences Informatics System call for proposals. This program element is part of Science Mission Directorate (SMD) Research Opportunities in Space and Earth Sciences - 2021 (ROSES-2021) solicitation. These five research projects, involving recognized experts in the fields of combustion science, complex fluids, fluid physics, informatics, and materials science, will use data contained in the PSI system and build on prior reduced-gravity research to advance fundamental research in the physical sciences.

ZBLAN IN-SPACE FIBER OPTICS MANUFACTURING

Raw Materials
A new product: ZBLAN (fluorozirconate) preforms for space manufacturing!
ZBLAN standard rods (⌀12.5mm, L=120mm) represent an exclusive new product, specifically designed for In-Space Manufacturing. Contact us for custom requirements.

Thermal Modeling For Fiber Drawing Automation
ATOM™ thermal modeling helps maintain optimal conditions for the fiber optics processing and manufacturing (including gravity correction) 

In-Space Monitoring of Fiber Drawing Process
ATOM™ analytics and customized computer vision algorithms ensure that the optimal regime for microgravity processing is maintained. They also offer the ability to monitor and correct promptly key fiber optics parameters (fiber diameter uniformity, concentricity, etc.) during the in-space manufacturing process. 
Quality Control and Validation (pre and post flight)
Provide best terrestrial manufacturing reference; inspection of a suite of fiber properties (attenuation, defects, etc.) and estimates of contributions (including gravity correction) that lead to loss of performance. 



Maana Electric page at Factories in Space

Our mission is to be the first Utility company of the Solar System, to enable the future, both here on Earth and in space.

Develops scalable solar panel production facilities and aims to be the first utility company to service clients anywhere in the solar system. Using materials that can be found in desert sand and a completely emission-free process, Maana Elecric’s solar panels will be available at a price that is 60% below that of conventional solar farms. Its LunaBox is able to produce 1 megawatt of capacity per year on the Moon while also generating breathable oxygen.

With the support of European Space Agency - ESA, Maana Electric is prototyping a European system able to use material with low iron content and electricity to produce carbon neutral steel. This would enable to produce steel from low-grade material extracted near construction sites, reducing supply chain costs, addressing the rapid depletion of high-grade iron and promoting Europe as a world leader in green technology.

TerraBox

Maana Electric’s TerraBox is a fully automated factory capable of producing solar panels using only sand and electricity as inputs. The TerraBox fits within shipping containers, allowing the TerraBoxes to be transported to deserts across the globe and produce clean renewable energy.

Reactor for production of heat and pure ISRU metal during lunar nights through thermite reaction
Thermite reactions are chemical reactions between a pure metal and a metal oxide, which release a lot of energy and form a more stable metal oxide and a reduced metal. These reactions can refine many different metals with a relatively high purity, and the resulting metals could be used to build on the Moon. This early technology development project aims to develop a thermite reactor with the double role of producing the metals needed for building and living on the Moon, and generating heat to keep astronauts warm at night.




Redwire (Made in Space) page at Factories in Space

Redwire Space is accelerating humanity’s expansion into space by delivering reliable, economical, and sustainable infrastructure for future generations.

Orbital Microfabrication

Working on manufacturing electronics and semiconductors in LEO. Experiment is scheduled to fly to ISS on CRS-28 in 2023.

Developing an autonomous, high throughput manufacturing capability for production of high quality, lower cost semiconductor chips at a rapid rate. Terrestrial semiconductor chip production suffers from the impacts of convection and sedimentation in the manufacturing process. Fabricating in microgravity is expected to reduce the number of gravity-induced defects, resulting in more usable chips per wafer. Market applications include semiconductor supply chains for telecommunications and energy industries. 

Manufacturing of Semiconductors and Thin-Film Integrated Coatings (MSTIC)


Space Forge page at Factories in Space

We are developing a reusable manufacturing satellite that uses the benefits of space to make new materials that are not possible on Earth.

We make super materials in space that cannot be made on Earth. Our vision is to harness the benefits of outer space to improve life on our planet, by producing new materials that can be used on Earth.

"We’re still aiming for a first launch at the end of 2022 but that really depends on what rockets are available," said Andrew.

Reuters: World’s first reusable satellite to offer in-space manufacturing.

Microgravity as a service

Introducing The ForgeStar™ Platform. Rapid, reliable and returnable vehicle. to harness the space environment for your needs.

Space Forge has developed a dedicated platform for your microgravity production, research and experimentation needs. What makes us unique is that our proprietary return system will bring your precious cargo back to Earth gently, with no shock on landing, safely delivering high-value products back to you in an innovative vehicle with a precision engineered capture and recovery system.

Aether

The next-generation prediction system. A Satellite and Space body re-entry warning system with a location accuracy that is useful.

Precisely engineered tracking, capture and recovery with our proprietary automated algorithm that is lightyears ahead of the rest.

  • The next-generation prediction system.
  • Precisely engineered tracking, capture and recovery.
  • Designed for convenience, cost and customer satisfaction.
  • Speedy return of your payload post mission"

ForgeStar-0

The company plans to soon launch a small demonstration spacecraft called ForgeStar-0 from the U.K. on an air-launched Virgin Orbit rocket in what would be the first orbital launch from the country.

On Monday night Virgin Orbit's attempt to launch a rocket from the United Kingdom failed after a problem with the rocket's second-stage engine.

ForgeStar-1

A challenge for the company’s satellite, known as ForgeStar 1, will be its safe re-entry through the Earth’s atmosphere, so that it may be relaunched.

ForgeStar-1, is due to fly in 2023. That spacecraft will be four times the size of this summer’s debutant and is planned to successfully re-enter Earth’s atmosphere and land safely off the UK coast.

Space Forge lost its first satellite, ForgeStar-0, on the Virgin Orbit launch from the U.K. that failed in January.

Their new satellite, called ForgeStar-1, is about to ship to the U.S. for a launch at the end of this year or in early 2024, 2023-10-02.

ForgeStar-2

ForgeStar-2 will be even bigger again. Set to launch in 2024/2025, this is slated to be Space Forge’s first commercial launch, where the value of the material manufactured in space exceeds the cost of placing the satellite into orbit. Using a fleet of reusable ForgeStar satellites, the medium to long term plan is to launch dozens of flights per year. Want to be building 10-12 of those a year, and that means after five years it’s over 100 flights a year

Australian space launch provider Southern Launch has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with UK based Space Forge to explore possibilities returning satellites to Earth at Southern Launch’s Koonibba Test Range in outback South Australia.

But the company's subsequent mission will be built to survive the fiery return through the atmosphere and bring its products back to Earth. The company will not concentrate solely on semiconductor manufacturing but will use their satellites to host other industrial processes as well. Western said the first returnable satellite might be launched in two or three years, 2023-10-02.

US Office

The Cardiff, Wales-based startup focused on fabricating high-value materials in space is looking for a U.S. location for manufacturing ForgeStar satellites and payloads for U.S. customers.

  • “We’ve had a lot of taps on the shoulder from both government and commercial players that are interested in our core capabilities,” Space Forge CEO Joshua Western told SpaceNews.
  • Space Forge intends to manufacture semiconductors, alloys and biological materials in orbit.
  • An upgraded version, ForgeStar-1A, is scheduled to launch later this year on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rideshare flight. ForgeStar-1A will demonstrate Space Forge’s in-space manufacturing capability and gather safety data, Western said.

ForgeStar System

The new system, which includes a heat shield and a water vehicle designed to soften the spacecraft’s landing, will be incorporated into the company’s in-space manufacturing satellite platform called ForgeStar.




Earthly Solution Risk

Exists, because lots of research is happening to keep up with the Moore's law and economies-of-scale likely favor Earth in the near-term.

References

  1. Harry L. Shipman. Space 2000: Meeting the Challenge of a New Era. Published in 1987. Source

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  2. Making Stuff in Space: Off-Earth Manufacturing Is Just Getting Started. Sarah Lewin, Space.com. Published 2018-05-11. Accessed 2019-01-31. Source

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  3. Glenn Chapman. Microfabrication in Space Papers: Prof. Glenn H. Chapman. Last updated Mar. 21, 2016. Accessed 2019-01-31. Source

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  4. Ioana Cozmuta et al. Space Portal NASA Ames Research Center. Microgravity-Based Commercialization Opportunities for Material Sciences and Life Sciences: A Silicon Valley Perspective. Source

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  5. Yoshihiro Hamakawa et al. Survey report of JSUP Space Environment Utilization Research Committee in fiscal year 1992: Functional New Materials Session. Source

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  6. Jessica Frick, Erik Kulu, Gary Rodrigue, Curtis Hill, and Debbie Senesky. 2023. “Semiconductor Manufacturing in Low-earth Orbit for Terrestrial Use.” OSF Preprints. November 8. osf.io/d6ar4. Source

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  7. The Workshop on Semiconductor Manufacturing in the Space Domain Source

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