Communications of the ACM
Fortifying Computer Chips For Space Travel
Computer chips that need to withstand excessive radiation during space flight are being tested in places like the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
Credit: U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration
Computer chips used in spaceships need to be robust to withstand excessive radiation from high-energy sources such as the sun or cosmic rays. To ensure a spaceship's microprocessors are resilient, they undergo testing at places such as the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
The lab's 88-Inch Cyclotron is used to accelerate ions to high energies along a circular path. Berkeley research coordinator Mike Johnson says some of the electronics now being tested by the lab are destined for the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration's new Mars-bound spacecraft called Orion.
The processors are mounted in a vacuum chamber facing a "cocktail beam" whose intensity of ions can be adjusted depending on the planned application. In the case of Orion, several radiation safeguards have already been put in place, such as using older and larger microprocessors with larger transistors that are less sensitive to interaction with an ion. The chips are encased in significant radiation shielding.
Johnson says a 10-micron by 10-micron microbeam is now available at the lab, but within a year his team expects to reduce its size to the sub-micron level to better pinpoint radiation problems in chips.
From Berkeley Lab News Center
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