Heavy Ion Induced Upsets in Semiconductor Devices

Heavy ions produced at various accelerator facilities have been employed to measure the effect of cosmic rays on semiconductor devices in space. An ion transmission counter, a solid state detector, and a position sensitive detector comprise the beam-monitor system used to measure the flux in real time and to monitor the spatial beam uniformity. An LSI 11/23 computer exercises the semiconductor devices under test. The technique of the experiment especially involving ever increasing complexity of dévices will be described along with the upset results obtained from some devices.