Intel has patented the concept of an on-chip detector of cosmic rays which would auto-correct for soft errors caused by the cosmic ray's interference. Apparently Intel is concerned that cosmic rays -- those perky particles from space that blast through the Earth's atmosphere and tamper with your precious bodily fluids -- are going to become "a major limiter of computer reliability in the next decade" as chips get smaller and smaller. The rays have already been proved to interfere with electronics in small ways, so while Intel doesn't have method for building an actual cosmic ray detector yet, they're certainly getting a jump on the problem with this patent:

When cosmic rays hit the Earth's atmosphere, they collide with air molecules, producing an "air shower" of high energy protons and neutrons and other particles. It is these that Intel wants to look for. If they get near the wrong part of a chip, the electrons they trail can create a digital 1 or 0 out of nowhere, something called a "soft error". Computer giant IBM thoroughly investigated the problem in the mid 90s, testing nearly 1,000 memory devices at sea level, in mountains and in caves. They showed that at higher altitude, more soft errors occurred, while in the caves there were nearly none. That proved cosmic rays were to blame. As RAM chips became more dense, the problem was predicted to get worse. But better designs and error checking techniques have helped, with systems used in planes and spacecraft getting beefed-up error checking because they are at greater risk.

Their patent suggests built-in cosmic ray detectors may be the best option. The detector would either spot cosmic ray hits on nearby circuits, or directly on the detector itself. When triggered, it could activate error-checking circuits that refresh the nearby memory, repeat the most recent actions, or ask for the last message from outside circuits to be sent again. But if cosmic ray detectors make it into desktops, would we get to know when they find something? It would be fun to suddenly see a message pop up informing a cosmic ray had been detected. I haven't seen any recent figures on how often they happen, but back in 1996 IBM estimated you would see one a month for every 256MB of RAM.

So they can tell now when a cosmic ray hits chip, and correct for it. But what happens when a cosmic ray hits the cosmic-ray detector and scrambles its brains, huh? Will we need a corrector for the corrector now too? And a corrector-corrector corrector? ;-)