New UK Facility to Protect Microchips from Cosmic Chaos

UK scientists have built a new facility aimed at understanding how particles from space can interact with electronic devices and to investigate the chaos that cosmic rays can cause – such as taking communications satellites offline, wiping a device's memory or affecting aircraft electronics.

Following a funding announcement by the UK government in 2011 a team  led by ISIS project scientist Dr Chris Frost developed ChipIR , the latest facility built at the UK’s Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) ISIS neutron source. It is designed to look at how silicon microchips respond to cosmic neutron radiation, with consequent benefits for the electronics industry. ChipIR has now successfully completed its first round of development testing before going in to full operation in 2015.

University, Science and Cities Minister, Greg Clark commented : “The Government understands how vital it is to innovate and tackle the challenges that face our electronics industry. This funding is helping to develop a facility capable of putting safety critical circuits through their paces, making planes safer and the electronics on which we all depend more reliable.”

“In building ChipIR at ISIS we have created a test facility that will allow the electronics industry to rapidly assess the vulnerabilities of their devices. We can mimic the cosmic rays’ neutrons and, by putting an electronic device into their path, we can work out why that piece of electronics is being disrupted,” said Chris Frost.