Topics and links of the broadcast 6-2-2022 11:00 am (CEST)

Research on Ancient Massive Solar Storms Suggests a Need to Prepare for the Next Ones
(reported by PE1CUP and PC5D)

Numerous powerful X-class solar flares occurred last fall as Solar Cycle 25 activity picked up. Jon Jones, N0JK, covered the event in his QST column, "The World Above 50 MHz," in the February issue, and he pointed out, "More powerful flares than these have taken place, such as the Carrington Event of 1859, during which aurora was seen in the South Pacific and in Cuba, and it sparked electrical fires."

Similar events took place in the 20th century, but, as Jones notes, scientists are researching spectacular solar storms that took place as early as 7176 BC and in 5259 BC. The huge solar flare some 9,200 years ago has convinced researchers that we are not ready for the next one, and our modern technology would take a major hit.

Also worrisome is that Earth may have narrowly dodged a 'Carrington-level event' in 2012," Jones said. Daniel Baker of the University of Colorado -- speaking at a NOAA Space Weather Workshop -- said, "If it had hit, we would still be picking up the pieces."

Jones said his reading has led him to conclude that these solar superstorms occur more frequently than people think. "As more ice cores and tree rings are sampled, scientists are finding there have been more of these [major solar storms]," he said.

In his February column, Jones cited a 2013 Royal Academy of Engineering report that discussed the risks of a Carrington-level event.

"An extreme space weather event, or solar superstorm, is one of a number of potentially high-impact, but low-probability natural hazards," said Paul Cannon, a Royal Academy of Engineering fellow and chair of the study working group that developed the report. "Extreme space weather [can have] impacts on engineered systems and infrastructure."

Cannon said the hazard and risks of extreme space weather on the electricity grid, satellites, and air passenger safety had not previously been critically assessed. His group's report attempts to address that omission.

Read more and Source from ARRL website: http://www.arrl.org/arrlletter?issue=2022-02-03
More on Carrington-level events and superstorms by Professor Paul Cannon FREng on raeng.org.uk: https://www.raeng.org.uk/publications/reports/space-weather-summary-report

Can Moore's Law ending be deferred?

With the latest advances in fast fet transistors in chip design, it seems that the era in which Moore's law would end has once again been bent. This development is of extreme importance in sectors like UHF/SHF communications, computer technology and obtaining energy savings by optimisation.

Finally its seams the answer can be a firm YES, at least for the next decade, possibly even longer. But everything comes at a (right) price. These new technologies will drive up costs to manufacture them, which partly is compensated by the lower cost of smaller Silicon.

Research institutes and also IBM are currently developing multi-mesh-fet transistors smaller than 3 nanometers which can guarantee a further increase in speed in the future and possibly a significant decrease in energy consumption by achieving better efficiency.

In the following link a complete overview in a powerpoint presentation of Berkeley University of how this development takes place. https://people.eecs.berkeley.edu/~tking/presentations/KingLiu_SOI2012
Finfet technology explained (where we stand now) by Chenming Hu from Berkely University in an Adobe acrobat file: https://microlab.berkeley.edu/text/seminars/slides/2011-8_FinFET_and_the_Concept_Behind_It.pdf
IBM research: https://research.ibm.com/blog/2-nm-chip

FOSDEM 2022 almost here!

FOSDEM 2022, our second fully virtual conference, is only several hours away. Now would be an excellent time to check our full schedule and mark down all talks that interest you! To get a preview of how everything looks and works, visit our FOSDEM 2022 Matrix space and look around! You can also visit our virtual conference floor to see all the talks and stands.

Talks and stands can be found on the schedule (look for the S building to find the stands). All of them will have several links to a live stream (called Video only), a live stream with the Q&A visible (called Video with Q&A) and a dedicated chatroom (called Join the conversation!). Stands will also have a link to visit their stand (called Visit the stand). Click on any of the links to see what is going on!

Chatting and Q&A is done with Matrix (other networks are available) via the FOSDEM 2022 Matrix space. Now is a very good time to test it out so you are sure that everything works during FOSDEM so you won't miss any of the fun!

Find more details on the practical information page and we hope to see you this weekend!