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Cosmic rays causing 30,000 network malfunctions in Japan each year

April 5, 2021 (Mainichi Japan)

[7]
This file photo taken on Sep. 29, 2020, shows the building that
houses Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corp. in Tokyo. (Kyodo)

TOKYO (Kyodo) -- Cosmic rays are causing an estimated 30,000 to
40,000 malfunctions in domestic network communication devices in
Japan every year, a Japanese telecom giant found recently.

Most so-called "soft errors," or temporary malfunctions, in the
network hardware of Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corp. are
automatically corrected via safety devices, but experts said in some
cases they may have led to disruptions.

It is the first time the actual scale of soft errors in domestic
information infrastructures has become evident.

Soft errors occur when the data in an electronic device is corrupted
after neutrons, produced when cosmic rays hit oxygen and nitrogen in
the earth's atmosphere, collide with the semiconductors within the
equipment.

Cases of soft errors have increased as electronic devices with small
and high-performance semiconductors have become more common.
Temporary malfunctions have sometimes led to computers and phones
freezing, and have been regarded as the cause of some plane accidents
abroad.

Masanori Hashimoto, professor at Osaka University's Graduate School
of Information Science and Technology and an expert in soft errors,
said the malfunctions have actually affected other network
communication devices and electrical machineries at factories in and
outside Japan.

There is a chance that "greater issues" will arise as society's
infrastructure becomes "more reliant on electronic devices" that use
such technologies as artificial intelligence and automated driving,
Hashimoto said.

He emphasized the need for the government and businesses to further
research and implement countermeasures.

However, identifying the cause of soft errors and implementing
measures against them can be difficult due to them not being
reproducible in trials, unlike mechanical failures.

NTT therefore measured the frequency of soft errors through an
experiment whereby semiconductors are exposed to neutrons, and
concluded there are about 100 errors per day in its domestic servers.

Although NTT did not reveal if network communication disruptions have
actually occurred, the company said it was "implementing measures
against major issues" and "confirming the quality of the safety
devices and equipment design through experiments and presumptions."

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