Engineering topics
Publications and source records attributed to Kirschman, R..
Active thermal control for electronics on Mars Rovers imposes a serious penalty in weight, volume, power consumption, and reliability.
The benefits and problems of the use of cold semiconductor electronics and the research and development effort required to bring cold electronics into more widespread use were examined.
Generally speaking, several roles are seen for low temperatures in electronics: As a means of extracting better performance from existing technology, avoiding expense and delay required for the advances in design or fabrication which would be needed to achieve the same performance at room temperature. As a necessity in the quest for improved performance, to counteract detrimental effects which arises as technology is pushed to extremes. As an opportunity to take advantage of effects made available by low temperature operation, and to develop new devices based on them. The electronic devices and circuits considered are those based on semiconductivity. Superconductive devices and circuits are not included.