US Patent 7309866 - MEMS cosmic ray detector

http://www.freepatentsonline.com/7309866.html

Cosmic rays can cause problems in electronics especially as the feature sizes continue to decrease. This patent from Intel teaches a cosmic ray microsensor to provide a warning for cosmic rays in proximity to circuitry. Claim 1 reads:

1. A chip comprising: an active region including first circuitry; a substrate supporting the active region; and a first cosmic ray detector, wherein the first cosmic ray detector is a micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) cosmic ray detector.