There is no way semiconductor manufacturing would be done on Mars for at least many generations after colonization, if ever. More than likely it will be never. It’s not just the feasibility of setting up a wafer fab, it’s the entire materials supply chain that needs to support a wafer fab. You can’t have a crown jewel of a technological civilization without the complexity that it is built upon.
There has never been a demand for a fab in a box on Earth as you can just ship parts easily. However perhaps off Earth a fab where you add raw material in one end and get FPGA chips out the other is a viable business model. There are also many more destinations other than Mars...
Sometimes I get the impression that people don't appreciate how complex a technological society is.
And then there's the energy cost. Just the raw energy of raw materials is huge. Growing a Silicon boule means melting X Kg's of Silicon and the power budget for that alone is enormous. It's not an issue on Earth because you have a whole power grid to plug into. That "service" alone makes a stunning array of problems vastly easier on Earth than Mars.
However turning to the threads title. Doing this means either living in natural structures (IE Caves) or mfg structures out of local materials (Marscrete or compressed bricks). Can they be made airtight? snip...Long term radiation shielding needs 3m of Mars regolith. Low tech means surface operations so how you going to make suits? Made to measure rigid? If so what do the joints use?
Human waste recycling becomes a key resource for plant and fish growth and potentially heat and light. Air production is something that isn't an issue on Earth. On Mars it's (literally) life and death.
The silicon wafers used in semiconductors are very light, small and high value. You would be hard pressed to come up with a better candidate of item to ship over rather then produce in situ. They are unlikely to be made on Mars so long as they are only made in a handful of places on earth.
Quote from: johnfwhitesell on 06/01/2018 07:50 pmThe silicon wafers used in semiconductors are very light, small and high value. You would be hard pressed to come up with a better candidate of item to ship over rather then produce in situ. They are unlikely to be made on Mars so long as they are only made in a handful of places on earth.The OP questioned whether it would be possible to make a Mars colony self-sustaining; relying on Earth negates that aim. Could you manufacture transistors on Mars relatively straightforwardly, and how self-sufficient would that make a colony?
My Idea that silicon wafers will be made in orbit (in 20 years), earlier occurred to a Kerbalite!
I think the aim is to make Mars eventually totally self sufficient. ie If Earth is wiped out, the colonists on Mars will still be able to keep the human race alive. The sooner this is achieved, the better the odds of our species surviving.This means that, they have to have the ability to keep life essential devices operational. As long as water, air ,food and energy are available they have the potential to succeed.Relying on critical systems from Earth that can not be maintained on Mars is the recipe to disaster. All the time Earth is available as a trading partner, it is ok to use complex equipment, but the aim should be to build stable maintainable services on Mars to cover the essentials.
Quote from: CuddlyRocket on 06/02/2018 09:11 pmQuote from: johnfwhitesell on 06/01/2018 07:50 pmThe silicon wafers used in semiconductors are very light, small and high value. You would be hard pressed to come up with a better candidate of item to ship over rather then produce in situ. They are unlikely to be made on Mars so long as they are only made in a handful of places on earth.The OP questioned whether it would be possible to make a Mars colony self-sustaining; relying on Earth negates that aim. Could you manufacture transistors on Mars relatively straightforwardly, and how self-sufficient would that make a colony?I suspect the 80:20 rule applies. It is heavy things that Mars needs to be made self sufficient in.