Memory Errors (was Re: on GUIs and such things)

[James Graves]

On Mon, 24 Jul 2000, Bill Frantz wrote:

> Note that ECC allows recovery in RAM.  (As several generations of IBM
> mainframes have shown.)  You can get almost any level of recovery you want
> by adding bits.  (You still can't recover from destruction or loss of the
> device.)
> 
> Note that alpha shielding is also easy.  I doubt that any externally
> generated alpha particles can get to the RAM in a Palm Pilot for example.

This is true.  Unfortunately, the primary source of error-inducing alpha
radiation is the ceramic packaging of the chip itself!

Recently, manufacturing techniques have improved the elimination of the
unwanted isotopes that spit alpha particles.  It continues to be a
worry, though, as memory densities increase.  The smaller the gate, the
more fragile and sensitive to radiation it is.

We now return to your regularly scheduled program...

James Graves