
Thermonuclear explosion

In the Cold War days of yore, being able to detect the launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) or the detonation of a thermonuclear device was a state of the art application of technology. Back then it involved radar installations throughout the world and space-based Defence Support Program satellites. Today, the US still uses satellites to keep an eye on missile launches throughout the world — not just Mother Russia — but it uses silicon chips to detect an actual nuclear explosion, chips just like the Maxwell Technologies HSN-1000 Nuclear Event Detector, or NED for short.

Maxwell’s NED [PDF] is a very simple silicon chip consisting of an ionizing radiation detector, an amplifier, and a timer. In normal operation, the chip’s Nuclear Event Detection pin is high (binary 1), and when the chip detects a burst of radiation the NED pin goes low (binary 0). Beyond this, of course, it entirely depends on what the chip is connected to. Its most common use is to shut down computer equipment incredibly quickly: when a nuclear explosion occurs, ionizing radiation is emitted just before an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) occurs. The NED would quickly switch off any attached computers before the EMP blast hits, and then turn back on after. The chip itself is rated (and tested!) to around 10 billion sieverts per second, or a few million times more radiation than anything on XKCD’s helpful Radiation Dose Chart.

Maxwell HSN1000 nuclear event detector (NED)In other words, almost every piece of vital infrastructure probably has one of these NED chips buried within it somewhere. At the very least, every ICBM will have one installed — you don’t want your missiles to be deactivated before they detonate, obviously — and most satellites and terra firma utilities probably have an NED too. If the internet is to survive a nuclear war, you’d hope that data centers are also kitted out with NEDs.

Of course, if you’re worried about an impending nuclear holocaust, you could also build your own nuclear-hardened equipment, too. You’ll need to be a government contractor or similar to buy the HSN-1000 from Maxwell directly, but they’re only $150 from obsolete and excess inventory distributor Freelance Electronics. It would take just a few minutes to wire a NED up to your 6-way extension cable, thus ensuring your computer’s survival. Whether you would survive a thermonuclear blast is another matter entirely, though…

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