Hacker News Reader

Radiation hardness is different than sensitivity to EMP. It is the eddy currents from an EMPT that build up in and burn out small traces in micro electronics.

View on HN

But magnetic cores are resistant to the M in EMP?

I'll offer a wild guess - perhaps they are only temporarily affected (i.e. mem-wiped) and function as normal after device reset, being made of iron, in contrast to semiconductor doping materials being hard-killed by the emp.

Drum memory [1] and hard disks [2] have been used in nuclear tipped missiles, which are supposed to operate in an environment where EMPs are expected. Both types use magnetism for storing data.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASC-15 (Titan II)

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D-17B (Minuteman I) (note that the hard drive was used as RAM)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com