Scumbria , a soft error is the result of a bit in a cell in main memory, cache, microcode, etc., getting flipped from a one to a zero, or vice versa, usually by an external force, such as an Alpha particle. If rewritten to its proper state by ECC logic or a regular store, or whatever normally stores into it, the cell will store the proper bit value. Hence it's called a soft error. A hard error, also called a "stuck at", or other things, won't allow both values (1s and 0s) to be stored (not at the same time, of course).
Tony |
