Do gamma rays from the sun really flip bits every once in a while?

bit flip
WinMain picture WinMain · Nov 5, 2010 · Viewed 26.3k times · Source

Possible Duplicate:
Cosmic Rays: what is the probability they will affect a program?

Is this just a tongue in cheek expression or is this really true, and if so, what precautions should we take in software (or these precautions hardware only)?

Answer

T.E.D. picture T.E.D. · Nov 5, 2010

Well, I did dig up this paper, which claims that your RAM will get bit alterations from "Atmospheric Neutrons" (aka: Cosmic Rays) at a rate of about 1.3*10^-12 /bit/hour.

An article by Berke Durak uses that to calculate that your probablilty of having at least one bit error in 4 gigabytes of memory at sea level on planet Earth in 72 hours is over 95%. Of course that assumes you are using non-error-correcting memory (non-ECC). With ECC, he figured, you can wait 2.7 million years before you get an uncorrectable bit error at a probability of 96%.

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