Survivable Multiprocessor Machine

BUILDING A SURVIVABLE MACHINE WITH MULTI PROCESSORS
Can Your Machine Take a Hit and keep on ticking? You know... cosmic ray, project falls to the floor, incoming asteroid, all can upset your precious machine and ruin your day. How can we better ensure the machine will take a hit and bounce right back for more?

At what level can you build a multiprocessor machine which will continue functioning if one or more chips fail? In this blog we will consider some of the ideas required to construct a more reliable machine.

EXPOSED WIRING AND CIRCUITS
Machines with exposed wires and circuit are easily bumped, and oops, a wire is pulled out and the machine no longer functions correctly. Consider when a bump causes a single integrated circuit to dislodge. Another oops. After the machine is built and fully functioning, cover it with microwavable Seran Wrap or a housing containment.

EARTHQUAKE AVOIDANCE
It's almost impossible to avoid earthquakes in some regions of the world unless you move to calmer continents. Unknown to many people, an earthquake often has a rapid vibration effect that can remove paint from walls and ceilings. This high speed oscillatory motion can also effect electronic components and circuits. Pad electronics to absorb oscillations.

SPECIFIC INTERFACE WIRING
The machine with wiring that can continue to function when one or more ICs drop out, is very desirable. To accomplish this, special wiring is required so that the loss of one chip will not hang the interface.

AUTO CHIP REPLACEMENT
Both wiring and software must work together to accomplish the Auto Chip Replacement method, where some unused chips are standing by, ready to fill in for failed chips.

DIAGNOSTICS
On the fly diag is highly useful to determine the stats of each chip. This can be run at power up, mid range, and power down. The trick is to find a test algorithm that functions very effectively and very quickly. Remember, the time required to run the test is multiplied by the number of chips and the number of cores. For a 100 chip machine, this equals 800 cores. If the test requires one minute per core, the test will finish in 800 minutes or 13.3 hours later.

President Obama Space

President Obama dramatically moves beyond the Space Shuttle

PRESIDENT OBAMA SPACE
How Does Obama Space affect Big Brain Science? Exactly what has Obama done for the space program?
 
As reported in the news, USA President Obama directed NASA to work toward getting astronauts to a near-Earth asteroid by 2025, then on to the vicinity of Mars by the mid-2030s.

The agency is developing a huge rocket called the Space Launch System and a crew capsule called Orion. NASA hopes the SLS-Orion combo will begin launching astronauts by late 2021.

The Obama Administration has also encouraged NASA to hand over crew and cargo activities in low-Earth orbit (LEO) to private American companies. The aim is to fill the void left by the 2011 retirement of the space shuttle program, which was set in motion by President George W. Bush back in 2004.

NASA has doled out a total of $1.4 billion in the past two years to firms developing crewed vehicles. The agency wants at least two crewed commercial spaceships to be up and running by 2017; until then, the United States will remain dependent on Russian Soyuz spacecraft to provide this orbital taxi service.

The progress has been faster on the cargo front, with California-based SpaceX completing the first of 12 contracted supply flights to the International Space Station with its robotic Dragon capsule last month. NASA has also inked a resupply deal with Virginia-based Orbital Sciences Corp., which aims to launch a demonstration mission to the orbiting lab in the coming months.

Sources: NASA, FOX News, General Press