Impact of Low-Energy Proton Induced Upsets on Test Methods and Rate Predictions

Practicality of evaluating soft errors in commercial sub-90 nm CMOS for space applications

“…The spacecraft shielding distribution will determine which portion of the external proton energy spectrum becomes the low-energy spectrum that impacts sensitive microelectronic devices [2]. Low-energy protons have thus far been defined as protons with a kinetic energy less than 10 MeV, though energies that result in soft errors are typically below 2 MeV for the 65 and 45 nm process technologies documented thus far [1][2][3][4]. To be published in the 2010 International Reliability Physics Symposium conference proceedings.…”

“…Recent results published by B. D. Sierawski et al [4] show that for space environments with large proton populationslow Earth orbit, highly-elliptical orbit, and solar particle events -direct ionization soft errors from low-energy protons either dominate the overall soft error rate or constitute a significant fraction of it. The problem facing radiation engineers then becomes one of hardness assurance.…”

“…This is particularly true for commercial off the shelf (COTS) complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) parts. While these parts enable improved scientific investigations, evaluating the semiconductor technologies required for the missions creates unique testing challenges like the examination of low-energy proton-induced soft errors [1][2][3][4].…”

Soft-Error in SRAM at Ultra-Low Voltage and Impact of Secondary Proton in Terrestrial Environment

“…[6] demonstrated that low energy protons contribute to SER by direct ionization and the cross-section of low energy protons ( MeV) is three orders of magnitude larger than that of high energy protons ( MeV). The proton impact on SER is also investigated in [7]- [9]. In space environment, [7] reported that direct ionization from protons is a major contributor to the total SER in the ISS orbit and geosynchronous (worst day) orbit.…”

“…The proton impact on SER is also investigated in [7]- [9]. In space environment, [7] reported that direct ionization from protons is a major contributor to the total SER in the ISS orbit and geosynchronous (worst day) orbit. Returning to terrestrial environment, [5] demonstrated that the number of generated secondary protons is one or two orders of magnitude larger than the number of alpha particles.…”