A startup founded by former OpenAI employees is attempting to move part of semiconductor manufacturing into space. According to TechCrunch, Besxar has partnered with SpaceX to test its orbital semiconductor factory prototype across approximately 12 Falcon 9 flights, aiming to produce materials needed for advanced chips using the vacuum of space.
Ground-based wafer fabrication facilities have high costs.
Building a semiconductor fab on Earth typically requires high-pressure cleanrooms and extensive infrastructure to prevent microscopic particles from contaminating chip manufacturing. Besxar’s approach is to leverage the natural vacuum of space, reducing reliance on such facilities. Company founder Ashley Pilipiszyn believes that as the cost of next-generation rockets decreases, shifting certain manufacturing processes to orbital environments is becoming feasible.
Completed a $14 million funding round
Besxar has raised nearly $14 million, including a $9 million seed round led by Dauntless Ventures and Overture VC. The company aims to use the funding to advance its orbital experiments and scale up manufacturing.
The first batch of sample flights was completed in July.
The company's first two "fabship" units were launched aboard a Starlink mission in July. These small modules are designed to carry and test semiconductor materials in orbit, primarily to verify whether the equipment can withstand launch, whether wafer samples remain uncontaminated, and whether the materials can be exposed to the vacuum of space.
Besxar stated that the above objectives have been achieved. Although the flight data system of one of the modules is under investigation due to a malfunction, the cleanliness of the returned samples surpassed that of the ground-based control wafer samples, with fewer particles.
Continue expanding testing over the next two years.
Next, Besxar plans to gradually increase the complexity of its experiments, including heating wafers, depositing single-layer materials, and eventually expanding to multi-layer material processing. The company aims to iterate continuously over the next two years, ultimately sending larger-scale manufacturing modules aboard SpaceX’s still-developing Starship.
Besxar aims to supply wafer materials to leading chip manufacturers for producing advanced chips required for data centers, robotics, and electric vehicle power control. In addition to Besxar, companies such as United Semiconductor and Space Forge are also attempting to leverage the space environment to enhance semiconductor manufacturing quality, but recycling capabilities and transportation costs remain common challenges.