Stan's List

Intel has been awarded a patent for cosmic ray detectors in chips. IBM, in the 1990’s proved that cosmic rays can cause what are called soft errors, as in changing a 0 to a 1, most likely in RAM As components shrink further, the chance of soft error increases. Intel’s patent states “This problem is projected to become a major limiter of computer reliability in the next decade”. Intel’s solution is to include a cosmic ray detector that will trigger error checking circuits, reloading data including the whole message, if necessary. More …