scholarly journals Characterization of Single Event Cell Upsets in a Radiation Hardened SRAM in a 40 nm Bulk CMOS Technology

Electronics ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (6) ◽  
pp. 927
Author(s):  
Guoqing Yang ◽  
Junting Yu ◽  
Jincheng Zhang ◽  
Xiangyuan Liu ◽  
Qiang Chen
Keyword(s):  
Integrated Circuits ◽  
Single Cell ◽  
Error Detection ◽  
Random Access ◽  
Cmos Technology ◽  
Single Event ◽  
Close Spacing ◽  
Error Detection And Correction ◽  
Radiation Hardened ◽  
Multiple Cell

A large amount of data needs to be stored in integrated circuits when data are being processed. The integrated circuits contain a large amount of static random access memory (SRAM) due to its high level of integration and speed. SRAM units should be as small as possible to achieve higher storage density. In this work, the features of single cell upsets (SCUs) and multiple cell upsets (MCUs) in a full custom SRAM are tested for a 40 nm bulk CMOS technology node, and Ge (linear energy transfer (LET) = 37.3 MeV cm2/mg), Cl (LET = 13.1 MeV cm2/mg), Al (LET = 8.6 MeV cm2/mg), O (LET = 3.1 MeV cm2/mg), and Li (LET = 0.5 MeV cm2/mg) particles are used. The test results show that the total single cell upset events are 2,000,147, 1,124,269, 413,100, 311,311, and 47,815 under the irradiation of Ge, Cl, Al, O, and Li, respectively. Moreover, due to single event upset reversal mechanism, multiple cell upsets significantly decrease. The total multiple cell upset events are 10, 4, 0, 0, and 0 under the irradiation of Ge, Cl, Al, O, and Li, respectively. There are a lot of single cell upsets appearing under Ge, Cl, Al, O, and Li exposure. The number is increasing with increasing LET, which means that well contacts still need optimization in the full custom SRAM. Close spacing of well contacts or increasing contacts are the approaches used to drain the excess carriers quickly, and error detection and correction (EDAC) is used for SRAM technology. The features show that SCUs have become a major source of soft errors for the full custom SRAM. Combining close spacing of well contacts with error detection and correction (EDAC) and a well engineering scheme are used to reduce single cell upsets, although there are a few MCUs which are inevitable. Radiation hardened by design schemes needs to be further improved.

scholarly journals Evaluation of Single Event Upset Susceptibility of FinFET-based SRAMs with Weak Resistive Defects

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thiago Copetti ◽  
Guilherme Cardoso Medeiros ◽  
Mottaqiallah Taouil ◽  
Said Hamdioui ◽  
Letícia Bolzani Poehls ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Integrated Circuits ◽  
Random Access ◽  
Cmos Technology ◽  
Oxide Semiconductor ◽  
Single Event ◽  
Short Channel ◽  
Dynamic Faults ◽  
Sram Cell ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Resistive Defects

AbstractFin Field-Effect Transistor (FinFET) technology enables the continuous downscaling of Integrated Circuits (ICs), using the Complementary Metal-Oxide Semiconductor (CMOS) technology in accordance with the More Moore domain. Despite demonstrating improvements on short channel effect and overcoming the growing leakage problem of planar CMOS technology, the continuity of feature size miniaturization tends to increase sensitivity to Single Event Upsets (SEUs) caused by ionizing particles, especially in blocks with higher transistor densities such as Static Random-Access Memories (SRAMs). Variation during the manufacturing process has introduced different types of defects that directly affect the SRAM's reliability, such as weak resistive defects. As some of these defects may cause dynamic faults, which require more than one consecutive operation to sensitize the fault at the logic level, traditional test approaches may fail to detect them, and test escapes may occur. These undetected faults, associated with weak resistive defects, may affect the FinFET-based SRAM reliability during its lifetime. In this context, this paper proposes to investigate the impact of ionizing particles on the reliability of FinFET-based SRAMs in the presence of weak resistive defects. Firstly, a TCAD model of a FinFET-based SRAM cell is proposed allowing the evaluation of the ionizing particle’s impact. Then, SPICE simulations are performed considering the current pulse parameters obtained with TCAD. In this step, weak resistive defects are injected into the FinFET-based SRAM cell. Results show that weak defects can positively or negatively influence the cell reliability against SEUs caused by ionizing particles.

scholarly journals Error Detection and Correction On-Board Nanosatellites Using Hamming Codes

2019 ◽  
Vol 2019 ◽  
pp. 1-15 ◽  
Author(s):  
Caleb Hillier ◽  
Vipin Balyan
Keyword(s):  
Error Correction ◽  
Error Detection ◽  
Simulation Software ◽  
Hamming Code ◽  
Single Event ◽  
Hamming Codes ◽  
Single Event Effects ◽  
Effective Version ◽  
Fast Speed ◽  
Error Detection And Correction

The field of nanosatellites is constantly evolving and growing at a very fast speed. This creates a growing demand for more advanced and reliable EDAC systems that are capable of protecting all memory aspects of satellites. The Hamming code was identified as a suitable EDAC scheme for the prevention of single event effects on-board a nanosatellite in LEO. In this paper, three variations of Hamming codes are tested both in Matlab and VHDL. The most effective version was Hamming [16, 11, 4]2. This code guarantees single-error correction and double-error detection. All developed Hamming codes are suited for FPGA implementation, for which they are tested thoroughly using simulation software and optimized.

scholarly journals SEE Sensitivity Evaluation for Commercial 16 nm SRAM-FPGA

Electronics ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (12) ◽  
pp. 1531 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chang Cai ◽  
Shuai Gao ◽  
Peixiong Zhao ◽  
Jian Yu ◽  
Kai Zhao ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Integrated Circuits ◽  
Cross Sections ◽  
Radiation Effects ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Random Access ◽  
Radiation Sensitivity ◽  
Heavy Ion ◽  
High Energy ◽  
Radiation Environment ◽  
Single Event

Radiation effects can induce severe and diverse soft errors in digital circuits and systems. A Xilinx commercial 16 nm FinFET static random-access memory (SRAM)-based field-programmable gate array (FPGA) was selected to evaluate the radiation sensitivity and promote the space application of FinFET ultra large-scale integrated circuits (ULSI). Picosecond pulsed laser and high energy heavy ions were employed for irradiation. Before the tests, SRAM-based configure RAMs (CRAMs) were initialized and configured. The 100% embedded block RAMs (BRAMs) were utilized based on the Vivado implementation of the compiled hardware description language. No hard error was observed in both the laser and heavy-ion test. The thresholds for laser-induced single event upset (SEU) were ~3.5 nJ, and the SEU cross-sections were correlated positively to the laser’s energy. Multi-bit upsets were measured in heavy-ion and high-energy laser irradiation. Moreover, latch-up and functional interrupt phenomena were common, especially in the heavy-ion tests. The single event effect results for the 16 nm FinFET process were significant, and some radiation tolerance strategies were required in a radiation environment.

scholarly journals A One-Cycle Correction Error-Resilient Flip-Flop for Variation-Tolerant Designs on an FPGA

Electronics ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 633
Author(s):  
Dam Minh Tung ◽  
Nguyen Van Toan ◽  
Jeong-Gun Lee
Keyword(s):  
Integrated Circuits ◽  
Error Detection ◽  
Error Resilience ◽  
Cycle Performance ◽  
Timing Error ◽  
Worst Case ◽  
Flip Flop ◽  
Error Detection And Correction ◽  
Field Programmable ◽  
Performance Penalty

Timing error resilience (TER) is one of the most promising approaches for eliminating design margins that are required due to process, voltage, and temperature (PVT) variations. However, traditional TER circuits have been designed typically on an application-specific integrated circuits (ASIC) where customized circuits and metastability detector designs at a transistor level are possible. On the other hand, it is difficult to implement those designs on a field-programmable gate array (FPGA) due to its predefined LUT structure and irregular wiring. In this paper, we propose an error detection and correction flip-flop (EDACFF) on an FPGA chip, where the metastability issue can be resolved by imposing proper timing constraints on the circuit structures. The proposed EDACFF exploits a transition detector for detecting a timing error along with a data correction latch for correcting the error with one-cycle performance penalty. Our proposed EDACFF is implemented in a 3-bit counter circuit employing a 5-stage pipeline on a Spartan-6 FPGA device (the XFC6SLX45) to verify the functional and timing behavior. The measurement results show that the proposed design obtains 32% less power consumption and 42% higher performance compared to a traditional worst-case design.

scholarly journals Bulk Bias as an Analog Single-Event Transient Mitigation Technique with Negligible Penalty

Electronics ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 27
Author(s):  
Jingtian Liu ◽  
Qian Sun ◽  
Bin Liang ◽  
Jianjun Chen ◽  
Yaqing Chi ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Circuit Design ◽  
Analog Circuits ◽  
Analog Circuit ◽  
Forward Bias ◽  
Cmos Technology ◽  
Common Source ◽  
Single Event ◽  
Single Event Transient ◽  
Body Effect ◽  
Radiation Hardened

In analog circuit design, the bulks of MOSFETs can be tied to their respective sources to remove body effect. This paper models and analyzes the sensitivity of single-event transients (SETs) in common source (CS) amplifier with bulk tied to source (BTS) in 40 nm twin-well bulk CMOS technology. The simulation results present that the proposed BTS radiation-hardened-by-design (RHBD) technique can reduce charge collection and suppress the SET induced perturbation effectively in various input conditions of the circuit. The detailed analysis shows that the mitigation of SET is primarily due to the forward-bias of bulk potential. This technique is universally applicable in radiation-hardening design for analog circuits with negligible penalty.

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