High Penetration Tests in SPS North Area

Intel’s new Myriad 2 chip underwent tests at the SPS accelerator to simulate conditions experienced in space

Chip

In November 2018, an ESA-led team came to CERN to test many space components with one of the most energetic radiation beams available on earth: the lead-ion beam delivered by CERN’s Super Proton Synchrotron (SPS) accelerator. Ultra-high energy (UHE) heavy ion beams can be very useful to simulate high-energy Galactic cosmic rays and perform qualification tests in air and without opening the equipment being tested.

One of the tests involved Intel’s new Myriad 2 artificial intelligence (AI) chip, considered to perform in-orbit image processing on future space missions, reducing the amount of data that needs to be sent back to earth. On 2 September 2020, Vega flight VV16 lifted off from Europe's Spaceport in French Guiana, carrying Myriad 2, Intel’s new Artificial Intelligence chip, tested at CERN.

Read more on the article published on home.cern: link.