Thanks for your answer. It is my understanding that it is the IC's that are what is vulnerable to EMP and being that they are in about 100% of everything electronics these days, seems to me there is a logical cause for concern.
IIRC correctly congress tried to pass a bill to have critical infrastructure hardened but it was never passed due to a lib congress critter...can't recall her name though or the specifics other then it was about five or so years ago and the cost would be a couple of billion.
” It is my understanding that it is the IC’s that are what is vulnerable to EMP and being that they are in about 100% of everything electronics these days, seems to me there is a logical cause for concern.”
You’re correct. There are also non-electronic elements that are vulnerable - some transformer windings, motor windings for instance. But semiconductor junctions are the most problematic. Virtually every semiconductor technology is vulnerable in some way.
It IS possible to protect them - but this sort of protection costs money - and in an era of cost minimization it’s easy to overlook something that adds cost.
“IIRC correctly congress tried to pass a bill to have critical infrastructure hardened but it was never passed due to a lib congress critter.”
It was called the “shield act”. It’s sort of still percolating out there - but like anything government there are problems with that approach. My opinion is it would take much more than a couple billion. That figure might be adequate for hardening against a solar storm.