Pulsed Laser Single-Event Effects in Highly Scaled CMOS Technologies in the Presence of Dense Metal Coverage

Single-Event Transient Induced Harmonic Errors in Digitally Controlled Ring Oscillators

“…Since, as stated in [12] and [13], SET pulsewidth is proportional to incident laser pulse energy, the observed laser energy window corresponds to an SET pulsewidth window (harmonic vulnerability window), which validates the harmonic analytical model. In addition, due to the uncertainty of the timing relationship between the edges of the SET pulse and the previous/following oscillation transition (as stated in property 3 in Section III-B), all duty cycle errors, missing pulse errors and harmonic errors are witnessed within the harmonic vulnerability window.…”

Effects of metal spacing and poly-silicon layers on pulsed-laser single event transient testing

“…(1), we estimate that the incident spot size is ~1.6 μm on the top of the die when the focused laser spot at the silicon surface is 1.2 μm. The metal cone dummy structure proposed in [20] is a promising approach to produce minimal (or no) interference with the focused laser pulse in laser SPA experiments that satisfies these constraints. Thus, SPA laser-based techniques have the ability to evaluate sensitive circuit nodes with sub-micron resolution, without physical damage associated with accelerator techniques [20,21].…”

“…The metal cone dummy structure proposed in [20] is a promising approach to produce minimal (or no) interference with the focused laser pulse in laser SPA experiments that satisfies these constraints. Thus, SPA laser-based techniques have the ability to evaluate sensitive circuit nodes with sub-micron resolution, without physical damage associated with accelerator techniques [20,21]. When integrated into the radiation design process, in particular, critical circuit evaluation with SPA laser testing will lead to cost-effective evaluation of potential soft error vulnerabilities of circuit elements, and then error rates may be estimated with follow-on neutron and alpha particle testing of the most promising circuit designs.…”

Frontside laser fault injection on cryptosystems - Application to the AES' last round -

“…Hence, in advanced technologies the laser spot could encompass several transistors violating our first assumption and induce a bit flip fault type (which refer to an inversion of the faulted bit regardless of its value) or impact several bits. Moreover as technologies are evolving the metal density over ICs increases due to metal-fill requirements [14]. Metal lines or fills are reflecting laser beams making it more and more difficult to access to sensitive areas from the front side.…”

“…As a result a bit-flip fault type is achieved. An intended application of this phenomenon is reported in [14].…”