Apparently Intel filed a patent for a system to protect chips from cosmic rays.
This makes a lot of sense. I've explained to many people over the years just why it is that the computers that run the Space Shuttle are so much less capable than what they have on their desk. Part of that reason is due to cosmic rays. The smaller the transistor feature size, the more vulnerable the transistor is to charge flipping from things like cosmic rays. NASA has to deal with this any time it puts hardware in space.
The Cassini Probe around Saturn regularly goes into safe-modes due to Galactic Cosmic Rays that twiddle bits they aren't supposed to. Again, NASA expected these and engineered around them. Of scientific interest, they've run into different concentrations of these galactic cosmic rays during the cruise to Saturn and while in orbit around Saturn.
So why is Intel worrying about this here on the surface of the Earth? Because we also get cosmic rays down here too. Not nearly as many, but we get them. For years I've used the phrase, "Must have been a cosmic ray strike," when something computer-like breaks in truly weird ways. Only partially am I being flip about it.
In a more wider scope, these 35nm feature size chips they're now coming out with are designed to work in very low radiation environments. Such as the type humans can live in unsupported. So when NASA/ESA/JAXA/Proton send laptops to the ISS, they're probably running older CPU's that are more radiation tolerant. Space is not a good place for supercomputing clusters.
This makes a lot of sense. I've explained to many people over the years just why it is that the computers that run the Space Shuttle are so much less capable than what they have on their desk. Part of that reason is due to cosmic rays. The smaller the transistor feature size, the more vulnerable the transistor is to charge flipping from things like cosmic rays. NASA has to deal with this any time it puts hardware in space.
The Cassini Probe around Saturn regularly goes into safe-modes due to Galactic Cosmic Rays that twiddle bits they aren't supposed to. Again, NASA expected these and engineered around them. Of scientific interest, they've run into different concentrations of these galactic cosmic rays during the cruise to Saturn and while in orbit around Saturn.
So why is Intel worrying about this here on the surface of the Earth? Because we also get cosmic rays down here too. Not nearly as many, but we get them. For years I've used the phrase, "Must have been a cosmic ray strike," when something computer-like breaks in truly weird ways. Only partially am I being flip about it.
In a more wider scope, these 35nm feature size chips they're now coming out with are designed to work in very low radiation environments. Such as the type humans can live in unsupported. So when NASA/ESA/JAXA/Proton send laptops to the ISS, they're probably running older CPU's that are more radiation tolerant. Space is not a good place for supercomputing clusters.