iPhone allergic to helium gas turns into a brick machine, Android?

Many of us have witnessed problems when using mobile devices but strangely like the case of Erik Wooldridge, a System Expert at Morris Hospital, Chicago, but certainly not. when.

Specifically, during the installation of a new GE Healthcare MRI, a lot of people 's cell phones in the hospital, all Apple products stopped working, some Apple Watch watches also flickering activity. Meanwhile, Android phones do not encounter the same problem. This situation affects 40 different devices, in a fairly wide range.

Erik said: 'The first thing I think about is some kind of EMP (electromagnetic pulse) emitted by the MRI machine that caused this. And if it is true, we may have a lot of trouble. "

Erik added, most of the affected Apple devices are completely dead, there are devices that cannot be charged. For devices that are upstream, there is a problem with mobile waves even though the wifi connection is still stable and fast.

After Erik posted the situation on social networking site Reddit, some system administrators said the cause of the phenomenon could be the liquid helium used to cool the MRI machine. Erik investigated and discovered it was true that at the time of the incident there was a helium leak that spread throughout the building.

iPhone allergic to helium gas turns into a brick machine, Android? Picture 1
Magnetic resonance imaging in hospitals.

After that incident, the devices began to recover slowly but not completely. Several days later, an iPhone of which suffered a serious error, the touch of some Apple Watch does not work even though the screen is still bright.

Erik has grouped the affected devices and found that Apple devices are faulty iPhone 6 and above and Apple Watch Series 0 and above. Among Apple mobile devices in the building there is only one iPhone 5 and it is not affected at all. So what happened that affected Apple mobile devices and Android devices?

First of all, we learn a little bit about the type of microelectromechanical system components (MEMS) - the smallest mechanical apparatus in the world. Each phone is equipped with an accelerometer and a gyroscope with only microns thin. According to the hypothesis given by Reddit members, helium molecules are small enough to slip into vacuum-sealed chips and interfere with the behavior of these mechanical parts.

iPhone allergic to helium gas turns into a brick machine, Android? Picture 2

But if that is the case, why is Android phone not affected by all phones using MEMS gyroscope? Perhaps, iOS exists a vulnerability that causes the device to hang up when receiving error data from the gyroscope? But Apple Watch running WatchOS is also affected and iPhone before version 6 is not affected. If not a software error, where is the problem?

iPhone allergic to helium gas turns into a brick machine, Android? Picture 3
Photo taken inside a MEMS gyroscope.

The heart of every electronic device is a clock (quartz oscillator, which produces a predictable frequency - usually 32 kHz). Without the clock, the CPU does not work, the system will stand still.

But these quartz oscillators are quite large in size - 1x3 mm or more and do not work properly at high or low temperatures. Apple has started using MEMS time oscillators named SiT512, manufactured by SiTime to replace quartz components to create smaller and smaller hardware.

SiT512 is the smallest and least energy-efficient 32kHz oscillator in the world. And it is very likely that this device is affected by helium intrusion and causes problems.

iPhone allergic to helium gas turns into a brick machine, Android? Picture 4
An MEMS oscillator under an electron microscope perspective.

A faulty oscillator will cause the mobile device to malfunction like Erik's description. Erik recreated the incident in a laboratory with the iPhone 8 Plus. The iPhone is in bright screen mode and the timer is placed in a sealed bag filled with helium. This experiment seems unrealistic because when the helium exposure occurs, the devices are much lower. After about 8 minutes and 20 seconds, besides the clock stopped, nothing crazy happened, the screen is still lit.

In another similar experiment, the iPhone 8 turned off after only about 4 minutes.

In the user guide for iPhone and Apple Watch products, Apple mentioned that the iPhone could be damaged or affected by exposure to chemical environments such as vaporized liquid gases such as helium. The company also gave specific instructions on disconnecting the charger and letting the air evaporate for a week. After that time, when the air has flown out of the device and the battery is completely empty, charge the device for about 1 hour and then turn it on again.

Other MEMS devices can also be affected by large amounts of small molecular gas. SiTime knows this and is looking for ways to minimize the problem.

In short, getting helium molecules into the device, causing the clock to stop and turning the phone into a brick in a short time is an extremely rare problem. You don't have to worry about this.

See more:

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2. Decoding 8 icons often appears on the iPhone screen but not everyone knows
3. iPhone has a crash or a sudden crash after updating to iOS 12