DocumentCode :
2563241
Title :
SEE characterization and mitigation in ultra-deep submicron technologies
Author :
Mavis, David G. ; Eaton, Paul H. ; Sibley, M.D.
Author_Institution :
Microelectron. Res. Dev. Corp., Albuquerque, NM, USA
fYear :
2009
fDate :
18-20 May 2009
Firstpage :
105
Lastpage :
112
Abstract :
As technology feature sizes decrease, single event upset (SEU), digital single event transient (DSET), and multiple bit upset (MBU) effects dominate the radiation response of microcircuits in space applications. Even in high-altitude and terrestrial applications, cosmic-ray neutron recoil byproducts can easily produce an unacceptable soft error rate (SER) in modern microcircuits. Process modifications and engineered substrate attempts have not provided significant levels of SEE (single event effect) mitigation. Circuit-level hardening approaches have, however, proven effective in mitigating all heavy-ion related effects. The size and speed penalties associated with these circuit hardening techniques often cannot be tolerated in commercial product designs. For this reason, experimental SEE characterization is necessary to identify dominant response mechanisms so that critical circuits can be identified and hardened with minimal impact on overall IC performance and permit the most effective trade-off between SER and the area/speed overhead. For complex designs, conventional broad-beam testing provides limited data to isolate the exact cause of observed errors and little insight into potential design improvements. We report on our new Milli-Beamtrade test hardware and associated data acquisition software that provide rapid SER raster scanning with spatial isolation as small as 10 microns to physically isolate dominant circuit susceptibilities of complex modern microcircuits.
Keywords :
radiation hardening (electronics); space vehicle electronics; SEE characterization; SEE mitigation; circuit-level hardening; cosmic-ray neutron recoil byproducts; digital single event transient; heavy-ion effects; high-altitude application; microcircuits; multiple bit upset effects; radiation response; single event effect mitigation; single event upset; soft error rate; space application; terrestrial application; ultra-deep submicron technologies; Circuit testing; Data acquisition; Error analysis; Hardware; Neutrons; Product design; Radiation hardening; Single event upset; Software testing; Space technology; Heavy-ion testing; Milli-Beam; multiple bit upset; single bit upset; single event effects; single event transient;
fLanguage :
English
Publisher :
ieee
Conference_Titel :
IC Design and Technology, 2009. ICICDT '09. IEEE International Conference on
Conference_Location :
Austin, TX
Print_ISBN :
978-1-4244-2933-2
Electronic_ISBN :
978-1-4244-2934-9
Type :
conf
DOI :
10.1109/ICICDT.2009.5166276
Filename :
5166276
Link To Document :
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