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Intel Patents On-Chip Cosmic Ray Detectors
holy_calamity writes "Intel has been awarded a patent for building cosmic ray detectors into chips, to guard against soft errors where a high energy particle from space changes a value in a circuit. It's a problem that largely only affects RAM. As component sizes shrink futher, "this problem is projected to become a major limiter of computer reliability in the next decade", says the patent. Intel's solution is to build in a detector that responds to cosmic errors by repeating the latest operation, reloading previous instructions, or rolling back to a previous state. You can also read the full patent."
I guess the butterfly stunt in http://xkcd.com/378/ wouldn't work after all.
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur.
I know at least four people who REALLY could have used this. Oh well, too late now.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Tin foil hats, for RAM!
Cosmic ray detector certainly makes for better marketing hype than ECC.
Yeah, its utterly ridiculous to believe that strange radiation from outer space can mes#[!^ ~` . '
Table-ized A.I.
Since these things are meant to go into space, I am not sure how well vertical and horizontal are defined. One thing that occurs to me: put the chip(s) on a gyroscope and have the detector keep the plane such that hits are minimized. Of course, the new -1 slashdot moderation for AC's means this comment won't ever be seen.
Microsoft claims Vista's poor performance and unreliability are due to interference from cosmic rays. Vista makes a computer run so fast, they claim, that cosmic rays present a serious threat to the computer's stability, often resulting in lower performance than older operating systems like XP. Microsoft plans to release a cosmic ray shielding computer case, which will retail for $300, and should be released some time this month. Current Vista license holders will get a $50 discount.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Wait a second... I'm pretty sure that none of what you said is in the Bible.
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
Yes, but a simpler way is to bombard the machine with heavy lead pellets or cut the power... :)
"Civis Europaeus sum!"