radiation hardened

Refers to electronic products that are built to withstand explosions or harmful natural electromagnetic radiation in the environment. Typically used in space, satellite, nuclear plant and military applications, "rad hard" products are highly insulated from the outside world. In addition, internal semiconductor elements can be made with more resilient materials, and systems built with features such as redundant components and error-correcting memories can recover from overexposure.

Rad Hard Automatically

This 4 megabit BAE Systems C-RAM phase change memory chip is shown in its package before it is covered and the leads are cut. Due to the huge resistance difference between a 1 and 0 in the memory cell (5K and 100K ohms), the chip is automatically radiation hardened (see phase change memory). (Image courtesy of BAE Systems, www.baesystems.com)

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