A startup founded by former OpenAI employees is attempting to move a part of semiconductor manufacturing into space. According to TechCrunch, Besxar has collaborated with SpaceX to plan to test a prototype of their orbital semiconductor factory during about 12 Falcon launches, with the goal of using the vacuum environment in space to produce materials required for advanced chips.
High costs of ground-based wafer factories
Building a wafer factory on land often requires high-pressure clean rooms and extensive infrastructure to prevent tiny particles from contaminating chip manufacturing. The approach of Besxar is to directly utilize the natural vacuum conditions of space to reduce the reliance on such facilities. The company's founder, Ashley Pilipiszyn, believes that as the cost of new-generation rockets decreases, it is becoming more feasible to shift some manufacturing processes to orbital environments.
Completed nearly $14 million in financing
Besxar has raised nearly $14 million in funds, including a $9 million seed round of financing led by Dauntless Ventures and Overture VC. The company hopes to use this to advance orbital experiments and gradually scale up production.
The first batch of samples were flown in July.
The company's first batch of two “fabship” devices were launched during a Starlink mission in July. These small capsules are used to carry and test semiconductor materials in orbit, mainly to verify whether the devices can withstand launch, whether wafer samples can be protected from contamination, and whether the materials can be tested in the vacuum environment of space.
Besxar indicates that the aforementioned objectives have been achieved. Although there was a malfunction in the flight data system of one of the compartments, which is still under investigation by the company, the cleanliness of the returned samples was superior to that of the comparative ground wafer samples, with fewer particulates.
Continue to expand testing in the next two years.
Next, Besxar plans to gradually increase the complexity of the experiments, including heating the wafers and depositing single-layer materials, before moving on to the processing of multi-layer materials. The company hopes to continue iterating over the next two years, with the ultimate goal of bringing larger-scale manufacturing modules onto SpaceX, which is still under development on Starship.
The goal of Besxar is to supply wafer materials to leading chip manufacturers for the production of advanced chips required for data centers, robots, and electric vehicle power control. In addition to Besxar, companies such as United Sem (which issued tokens nductors), and Space Forge are also attempting to utilize the space environment to improve semiconductor manufacturing quality. However, recycling capabilities and transportation costs remain common challenges.
