Daisuke KOBAYASHI

Our daily life relies on computers and their computation units of computer chips. We usually have an impression that they are always correct and reliable, but do you know this impression is a result of many researchers' efforts? Researchers are working for making computer chips tough against sudden shocks, and otherwise the chips can be easily surprised and lose their memory. This memory loss phenomenon is technically called "soft errors" and "single-event upsets", but rather than those technical terms I'd prefer to say simply, "computers can be surprised", which brings a clear image into mind. What makes them surprised? We can find it in some places including twinkle stars in space. From the stars invisible high-energy fragments come and travel in space; some of them arrive at the ground. They can give a shock to computer chips---an electric shock it is literally. Researchers are working for countermeasures against the shock in order to make computer chips be entrusted. Communicating with each other, some researchers are working for mainly how to protect the chips on the ground and others for the chips in space. I'm working for the latter, for the use in space, as a member of the Institute of Space and Astronautical Science, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency. For the successful use of computer chips in space, we have other issues to be solved; computers can be tired! I'd collectively call them space-chip engineering, which is my current research topic.