Title :
Neutron-induced soft errors in advanced flash memories
Author :
Cellere, G. ; Gerardin, S. ; Bagatin, M. ; Paccagnella, A. ; Visconti, A. ; Bonanomi, M. ; Beltrami, S. ; Roche, P. ; Gasiot, G. ; Sørensen, R. Harboe ; Virtanen, A. ; Frost, C. ; Fuochi, P. ; Andreani, C. ; Gorini, G. ; Pietropaolo, A. ; Platt, S.
Author_Institution :
DEI, Padova Univ., Padova
Abstract :
Atmospheric neutrons are a known source of Soft Errors (SE), in static and dynamic CMOS memories. This paper shows for the first time that atmospheric neutrons are able to induce SE in Flash memories as well. Detailed experimental results provide an explanation linking the Floating Gate (FG) cell SE rate to the physics of the neutron-matter interaction. The neutron sensitivity is expected to increase with the number of bits per cell and the reduction of the feature size, but the SE issue is within the limit of current ECC capabilities and will remain so in the foreseeable future.
Keywords :
CMOS memory circuits; error correction codes; flash memories; neutron effects; radiation hardening (electronics); CMOS memory; atmospheric neutron; error correction code; flash memory; floating gate cell; neutron-induced soft errors; neutron-matter interaction; Error correction codes; Flash memory; IEC standards; Intersymbol interference; Joining processes; Laboratories; Logic arrays; Logic testing; Neutrons; Research and development;
Conference_Titel :
Electron Devices Meeting, 2008. IEDM 2008. IEEE International
Conference_Location :
San Francisco, CA
Print_ISBN :
978-1-4244-2377-4
Electronic_ISBN :
8164-2284
DOI :
10.1109/IEDM.2008.4796693
