4 ms·
This is silly. Rapidly refreshing the data that was (presumably) flipped by a cosmic ray last time won't do anything to prevent an error in whatever it hits ne
by MarkusQ 11mo ago
This is silly. Rapidly refreshing the data that was (presumably) flipped by a cosmic ray last time won't do anything to prevent an error in whatever it hits next time. Unless the theory is that cosmic rays are somehow more likely to hit these particular bits compared to all the millions (billions?) of others in the system...in which case I have a different objection.
- AlotOfReading 11mo agoNot all circuits are equally sensitive. The parts that are known to be sensitive or critical are protected by redundancies and error checking, which are probabilistic protection. You haven't completely eliminated the possibility of corruption, just made it incredibly unlikely. Refreshing your inputs is another form of probabilistic protection focused on mitigating the consequences.
- MarkusQ 11mo agoWhy not ECC though? Unless this is a latched output of a robust system being held for use by another robust system I guess?
- AlotOfReading 11mo agoECC is one of the probabilistic protections I was talking about.
- adrian_b 11mo agoIn another HN thread it was said that since several years there is in production a new model of the affected module that has ECC. Despite that, most of the existing planes have an older model, which has not been upgraded.
- RealityVoid 11mo agoWhat is silly is media coverage of this. The error was in the ADIRU. They are updating the ELAC. The ELAC takes the decision based on multiple data streams from 3 ADIRU units and the issue being fixed is that it took the wrong decision. The ADIRU will probably continue having SEU but it will be fine.