[HN Gopher] LANL's ICE House Tests Microelectronics for Cosmic R...
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       LANL's ICE House Tests Microelectronics for Cosmic Radiation
       Exposure
        
       Author : LAsteNERD
       Score  : 9 points
       Date   : 2026-01-08 16:12 UTC (5 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.lanl.gov)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.lanl.gov)
        
       | LAsteNERD wrote:
       | Article from Los Alamos is about the ICE House, a facility where
       | they test electronics by blasting them with neutrons that mimic
       | what you'd get flying at 35,000 feet for decades. One hour of
       | testing = 100 years of cosmic radiation.
       | 
       | It's part of a larger effort to make electronics rad-hard -- so
       | that microchips don't randomly glitch or die in flight (or in
       | orbit). Especially relevant as chips shrink and transistor counts
       | hit hundreds of billions (i.e. more chances for failure).
       | 
       | Some highlights:
       | 
       | Neutrons from space can flip bits or cause "latch-ups" (think:
       | permanent short circuits).
       | 
       | These upsets can lead to weird bugs, BSODs, or worse --
       | especially at altitude.
       | 
       | The ICE House runs ~24/7 and still can't keep up with demand from
       | avionics and chip companies.
       | 
       | They're now planning a third beamline to expand testing capacity,
       | and even working on proton-based testing for space use cases.
       | 
       | If you're into hardware reliability, aerospace, or just cosmic-
       | ray horror stories for computers, this is worth the read.
        
       | schaefer wrote:
       | Oh, Memories. I helped build out this target during my student
       | gig as an undergrad.
        
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       (page generated 2026-01-13 23:00 UTC)