HADES Workshop May 24-26, 2011

Perma Works LLC “My thanks to the GNS and Tiger

Energy Services” Randy Normann, CTO

randy@permaworks.com

Perma Works LLC Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA

Perma Works “Acquiring Schlumberger the old fashion way, one customer at a time”

Perma Works Stays In The Well

• While others log the geothermal well using electronics in a thermos bottle, we take the heat continuously – No heat shield – No time limits – No worries

BACKGROUND ON HT ELECTRONICS

New markets are driving the development of HT Electronics

Energy and HT Electronics New HT electronics benefit both sides of the energy equation.

HT Industry is a Growing Market

Brakes

Transmission

The good news: All HT applications are also high reliability!

SOI – Silicon-On-Insulator Electronics are Designed for These Applications

What is HT SOI? • Silicon-On-Insulator (SOI) isolates

transistors on an insulating material providing: – Isolation reduces leakage currents

by ~100 times! – Latchup immunity – 25% Faster Switching – Better isolation for analog and

digital on the same die • SOI is the same process as used

for Radiation Hardened silicon

A: Cross-section of bulk CMOS inverter

P+N+ N+

P-well

N-Substrate

P+ P+

N+ N+P+ P+ P+P

Buried oxide

Si-substrateB: Cross-section of a SOI CMOS inverter

In short, SOI is just a better way to build silicon electronic devices

Making SOI Reliable

TEMPERATURE (°C)

LIF

ET

IME

(YR

S)

0

1

10

100

150 170 190 210 230 250 270 290 310 330 350

AlCu: 1mA/µm2

AlCu: 0.5 mA/µm2

W: 1 mA/µm2 Failure = 10% Increase

in Stripe Resistance Time for 1% of the parts

to fail W: 2 mA/µm2

Commercial Parts: Est. for 5 mA/µm2

> 5 Year Life at 225°C

Now

Future

Metal migration is a function of Current Density, Metal, Temp. Plot is from Honeywell SOI group, Bruce Ohme

High Temperature Electronic Designs Eliminate Aging

• Doing everything right to stop aging – No right angle metallization paths – No on chip metal bridges – No voids in the die attach – Keep TCEs matched – Ideal wire bonds – Eliminate intermetallic growth Show me a 225C/5yr electronic device and I will show you a

125C/30yr device

An Example: HT SOI Precision Amplifier

• Achieved 18-bit dynamic range

• Achieved high input impedance: – < 1nA input offset

current at 225°C – Ideal for pressure

measurements

• Demonstrated operation: – -55°C to 375°C

Input Offset Voltage @ 300C(after 438 Hrs. Operation @ 300C)

-125-100-75-50-25

0255075

100125

0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5Input Common-mode Voltage (Volts)

Offs

et V

olta

ge (m

icro

- vol

ts)

Offset comparable to LTC1049 over a 350°C Temperature Range!!

-55°C to 300 °C

250x improvement in offset accuracy vs. previous High-temp amplifier

Creating the Ideal HT Electric Circuit

Silicon (SOI)

Silicon Carbide(SiC)

Gallium Nitride(GaN)

Bandgap: Temp Limit

1.12 eV 400C

3.26 eV 800C

3.4 eV 1000C

Breakdown Field

30 V/um 250 V/um 250 V/um

Thermal Conductivity

1.5 W/cmK 3.3-4.8 W/cmK 1.5 W/cmK

Electron Mobility

600 400 1000-2000

EXAMPLES OF FAILED ELECTRONICS

It takes more than SOI to build a geothermal tool

250C Silver-Plated Copper - Fails

• Top image shows a clean ‘cut’ silver-plated copper.

• However, silver-plating copper wire has no protection from inter-metallic growth.

• The copper migrates through the silver to react with the tin (found in the solder) to form bronze crystals.

• This is a solid-phase interaction which leaves the wire joint fragile as can be seen in the lower photo.

Conventional Tinned Copper Lead

• The top photo is of an untested “new” capacitor lead designed for automotive use, 125C continuous with 200C extrusions.

• The photo below is of a capacitor lead coming out of the Coso tool.

• The automotive industry can sneak by with conventional solder tinned copper leads the drilling industry cannot.

HT Electronic Components Work To Very High Temperatures

• HT Component Testing • A commercial SOI voltage reference

• We must calibrate for system drift

EXAMPLES OF SUCCESS Perma Works is building complete tool solutions

New Extreme Temperature Circuit Boards

• Lab tested to 400C! • Absolutely no organic

materials! • Traces are etched

ceramic! • Flame blasted metal

conductors

• Aircraft circuit boards are not good enough for geothermal. PW had to make improvements now benefiting aerospace

300,400 & 550C Metal to Ceramic Bonds

Patents Pending

Confocal optical images, taken by NASA

Samples 1-RT, 2-300C, 3-400C 4-550C

New Ceramic Circuit Construction

5 Patents Pending • New circuit board with

metal traces tested at 500C! – New CNC construction – New tool mounting system

• HT Circuit boards geothermal brine ready

Unequaled HT Technology

It continues to work following this gross over heating!

500C Solder Joint! Under development

Instrumentation Housing with

Batteries

Solar Cells For power

SOI Tool

¼ in.Wired Tubing

The instrumentation housing contains: Batteries charged by the solar cells Receiver for tool data On board memory to storage data The downhole tool contains: Silicon-On-Insulator (SOI) electronics RTD (Resistive Temperature Device) Pressure transducer Hydrogen monitor (PW) Optical DTS system (DRAKA) Solid-State Liquid Flow Sensor (PW)

Geothermal Well Qualification System

Unparalleled Geothermal Well Characterization

SC GEOTHERMAL APPLICATIONS

Enabling new concepts in supercritical power production

Supercritical Tools • Placing HT tool electronics inside an improved

heat-shield, supercritical logging tools can be built much like conventional slickline geothermal logging tools – The Dewar heat-shield will protect the tool from

supercritical temperatures – The 250-300C operating temperature of the

electronics greatly increases the operating time in the well

– Pressure transducer will see SC temperatures – Lack of a high temperature battery is an issue

Flush-mounted SiC Pressure Transducer

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

14

16

18

20

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100Applied Pressure (psi)

Net

Bri

dge

Out

put (

mV

)

Vin = 5 VBQ0345-13-R10-C09-PS02-1-29Sensitivity: 36.60 µV/V/psi @ 25oC

25 oC

100 oC

200 oC

300 oC

400 oC

Typical Performance Characteristics Sensitivity: 5-36.60 µV/V/psi @ 25oC; 3-18 µV/V/psi @ 600 oC Input Voltage: 5-10 mV

>400C SiC Pressure Transducer

Contact: Dr. Robert Okojie, (216)433-6522; robert.s.okojie@nasa.gov

Potential HT Battery

Battery & test data from Electrochemical Systems

HT Battery Issues • Working with Electrochemical Systems Inc.

– PW demonstrated a 125C to 250C battery technology – Unfortunately, the first commercial builds had

production issues – These issues may have been resolved waiting on

second production run (4 cells) • The tool design is complicated because the battery does

not start working until 125C – Use of an internal heater to start the battery – Battery needs to be thermally isolated from the

electronics to allow for longest possible operating time inside the SC well

Recent Development 200C/1000hrs

• PW just completed the design and manufacture of general data collection set of electronics for 200C, 1000hrs

• This new technology is designed for high end applications using Texas Instruments HT chips – 60MHz, 32Bit, ARM7 microprocessor! – 8 parallel, 24Bit analog to digital converter! – 32Mbit flash memory (not yet commercial)

• This is a major advancement for Dewared geothermal tools and is commercially available from Perma Works.

Conclusion

• Perma Works has a new well monitoring system ready

for deployment

• New HT electronics enable the construction of basic supercritical logging tools by using heat-shields and HT electronics – HT batteries are an issue – Batteries exist with limited operating range and high costs

• Perma Works is working toward a complete geothermal

well control solution matching the complexity of the oil industry for cost effective reservoir management