[3] As an engineer, May was most noted for having identified the cause of the "alpha particle problem", which was affecting the reliability of integrated circuits as device features reached a critical size where a single alpha particle could change the state of a stored value and cause a single event upset.
[4][5] Intel solved the issue by increasing the charge in each cell to reduce its susceptibility to radiation[6] and adopting plastic packaging for their products.
Baker Award-winning paper "Alpha-Particle-Induced Soft Errors in Dynamic Memories", published in the IEEE Transactions on Electron Devices in January 1979 with Murray H.
May wrote a substantial cypherpunk-themed FAQ, "The Cyphernomicon" (incorporating his earlier piece "The Crypto Anarchist Manifesto");[11] and his essay, "True Nyms and Crypto Anarchy", was included in a reprint of Vernor Vinge's novel True Names.
His New York Times obituary noted: "He often wrote about arming himself and waiting for government agents to show up.