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Internet servers, computers and even safety-critical aircraft avionics are
increasingly at risk of system crashes and data loss, an electronics expert
warned last week. The peril comes from cosmic rays that produce bursts of charge
as they pass through the thin silicon layers of today’s advanced memory chips.
Because denser memories use smaller transistors that are more sensitive to
noise, they mistake the charges for signals. Server crashes are increasingly
being blamed on these “soft errors”, warns Mark-Eric Jones, vice president of
chip maker MoSys in Sunnyvale, California. Better error correction or chips that
are more radiation-proof are the answer.…