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ABSTRACT: We investigate the effects of metallization layers on the radiation hardness of an epitaxial CMOS memory technology using Monte Carlo simulations. A geometrically and composition-ally realistic three-layer metallization scheme is employed in de-tailed radiation transport simulations that include contributions from discrete -rays and nuclear reactions. The presence of high-Z plugs used to connect different metallization layers can have a sig-nificant effect on the single-event sensitivity depending on the lo-cation of the high-Z material relative to the sensitive region of the underlying device.
IEEE Transactions on Nuclear Science ; 52. · 1.45 Impact Factor
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ABSTRACT: We describe a tool suite, CRÈME, which combines existing capabilities of CREME96 and CREME86 with new radiation
environment models and new Monte Carlo computational capabilities for single event effects and total ionizing dose.
IEEE Transactions on Nuclear Science 12/2012; 59(6):3141. · 1.45 Impact Factor
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ABSTRACT: Monte Carlo simulations demonstrate that electrons in a Europa-like radiation environment produce single events capable of depositing more than 100 keV in a shielded focal plane array (FPA). Aluminum shielding slows down high energy free space electrons through collisions. Incident electrons can also generate secondary particles within shielding through electromagnetic cascades, nuclear interactions, and other mechanisms. When incident electrons and secondary particles deposit energy in FPA pixels, the result is transient increases in background noise. We compare the energy deposition integral cross sections and estimate the single event effect rate for a range of electron energies incident upon an FPA shielded with 1, 5, and 10 cm of aluminum.
IEEE Transactions on Nuclear Science 07/2011; · 1.45 Impact Factor
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B.D. Sierawski, M.H. Mendenhall,
R.A. Reed,
M.A. Clemens,
R.A. Weller,
R.D. Schrimpf,
E.W. Blackmore,
M. Trinczek,
B. Hitti,
J.A. Pellish,
R.C. Baumann,
Shi-Jie Wen,
R. Wong,
N. Tam
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ABSTRACT: Experimental data are presented that show low-energy muons are able to cause single event upsets in 65 nm, 45 nm, and 40 nm CMOS SRAMs. Energy deposition measurements using a surface barrier detector are presented to characterize the kinetic energy spectra produced by the M20B surface muon beam at TRIUMF. A Geant4 application is used to simulate the beam and estimate the energy spectra incident on the memories. Results indicate that the sensitivity to this mechanism will increase for scaled technologies.
IEEE Transactions on Nuclear Science 01/2011; · 1.45 Impact Factor
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M.A. Clemens,
N.C. Hooten,
V. Ramachandran,
N.A. Dodds,
R.A. Weller, M.H. Mendenhall,
R.A. Reed,
P.E. Dodd,
M.R. Shaneyfelt,
J.R. Schwank,
E.W. Blackmore
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ABSTRACT: Charge collection measurements reveal that the presence of high-Z materials increases proton-induced charge collection cross sections for high charge collection events. The mechanism for this effect is proton-induced fission events as shown through validated Monte Carlo simulations. These fission fragments are emitted isotropically in contrast to high-LET secondary particles from proton-silicon interactions which tend to be forward directed.
IEEE Transactions on Nuclear Science 01/2011; · 1.45 Impact Factor
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ABSTRACT: The effects of 10-keV X-rays and 400-keV endpoint-energy bremsstrahlung X-rays on MOS capacitors with SiO<sub>2</sub> or HfO<sub>2</sub> gate dielectrics and Al and TaSi gate metallization have been studied using the Monte Carlo simulator, MRED. We compare these calculations with previous results in the literature obtained with other Monte Carlo and discrete ordinates codes, and with experiments on devices with SiO<sub>2</sub> gate dielectrics, and find generally good agreement. There is a significant dose reduction in thin HfO<sub>2</sub> layers exposed to 10-keV X-rays, when the HfO<sub>2</sub> is surrounded by lower-Z materials (e.g., Si, Al). This dose reduction does not occur in a medium-energy bremsstrahlung X-ray environment; in that case, the dose in a HfO<sub>2</sub> gate dielectric can be ~10 times higher than the dose in a SiO<sub>2</sub> dielectric, for the same incident X-ray fluence. These results demonstrate the capability of MRED to assist in the evaluation of dose enhancement and reduction in regions including or nearby high-Z materials in microelectronic materials and devices.
IEEE Transactions on Nuclear Science 01/2011; · 1.45 Impact Factor
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ABSTRACT: Monte-Carlo radiation transport simulations are used to quantify energy deposition from δ -rays in sensitive volumes representative of future SRAM technologies. The results show that single and multiple δ-ray events are capable of depositing sufficient energy to cause SEUs in nonadjacent SRAM cells separated by many micrometers. These results indicate the necessity of considering the variability of the charge track structure when evaluating the single event response of these highly scaled technology nodes. These effects have important implications forradiation hardening techniques that rely upon spatial separation of critical and redundant nodes, and simulation of device and circuit level response to heavy ions with respect to ion track structure.
IEEE Transactions on Nuclear Science 01/2011; · 1.45 Impact Factor
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ABSTRACT: In this paper, we describe a Monte Carlo approach for estimating the frequency and character of single event effects based on a combination of physical modeling of discrete radiation events, device simulations to estimate charge transport and collection, and circuit simulations to determine the effect of the collected charge. A mathematical analysis of the procedure reveals it to be closely related to the rectangular parallelepiped (RPP) rate prediction method. The results of these simulations show that event-to-event variation may have a significant impact when predicting the single-event rate in advanced spacecraft electronics. Specific criteria for supplementing established RPP-based single event analysis with Monte Carlo computations are discussed.
IEEE Transactions on Nuclear Science 09/2010; · 1.45 Impact Factor
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ABSTRACT: Circuit-level simulations predict increased vulnerability of flip-flop designs and increased occurrence of single-event upsets in advanced technologies due to multi-node charge collection from single-ion strikes. This trend is examined by simulating 3D models of the flip-flops in a terrestrial neutron environment with Monte-Carlo simulations of charge generation in several technology generations.
Reliability Physics Symposium (IRPS), 2010 IEEE International; 06/2010
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M.J. Gadlage,
J.R. Ahlbin,
V. Ramachandran,
P. Gouker,
C.A. Dinkins,
B.L. Bhuva,
B. Narasimham,
R.D. Schrimpf,
M.W. McCurdy,
M.L. Alles,
R.A. Reed, M.H. Mendenhall,
L.W. Massengill,
R.L. Shuler,
D. McMorrow
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ABSTRACT: Factors that affect single-event transient pulse widths, such as drift, diffusion, and parasitic bipolar transistor parameters, are also strong functions of operating temperature. In this paper, SET pulse-width measurements are performed over a wide temperature range in both bulk and fully-depleted SOI (silicon on insulator) technologies. The average pulse-width increases with temperature for the bulk process, but not for the FDSOI process.
IEEE Transactions on Nuclear Science 01/2010; · 1.45 Impact Factor
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ABSTRACT: A comprehensive mathematical framework is established that encompasses both Monte Carlo single event effects (SEE) rate prediction and analytical approximations based on a single rectangular parallelepiped (RPP). Criteria derived from consideration of multiple devices and technologies are presented that are useful in identifying situations where RPP-model predictions of SEE rates may not be appropriate and should be augmented or replaced by advanced physical modeling.
IEEE Transactions on Nuclear Science 01/2010; · 1.45 Impact Factor
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ABSTRACT: There is a need for improved physics models to correctly predict single event effects (SEEs) caused by nuclear reaction products from heavy ion radiation. Previous validations for nuclear fragmentation simulations are shown to be insufficient to support SEE analysis applications. A comparison of different physics models with experimental nuclear physics data coupled with energy deposition predictions is presented.
IEEE Transactions on Nuclear Science 01/2010; · 1.45 Impact Factor
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ABSTRACT: Monte-Carlo simulation using the MRED software suite, coupled with SPICE analysis, is used to identify internal mechanisms of SEU in DICE flip-flops. Low frequency cross-section measurements and simulations identify multiple-node charge collection SEU mechanisms as the dominant contributor. An increasingly isotropic response is predicted with increasing frequency due to latching of internal single-node transients near clock boundaries. Implications for heavy ion testing and SEU rate prediction are presented.
IEEE Transactions on Nuclear Science 01/2010; · 1.45 Impact Factor
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N.A. Dodds,
R.A. Reed, M.H. Mendenhall,
R.A. Weller,
M.A. Clemens,
P.E. Dodd,
M.R. Shaneyfelt,
G. Vizkelethy,
J.R. Schwank,
V. Ferlet-Cavrois,
J.H. Adams,
R.D. Schrimpf,
M.P. King
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ABSTRACT: Direct charge collection measurements are presented, which prove that the presence of tungsten near sensitive volumes leads to extreme charge collection events through nuclear reactions. We demonstrate that, for a fixed incident particle linear energy transfer (LET), increasing particle energy beyond a certain point causes a decrease in nuclear reaction-induced charge collection. This suggests that a worst-case energy exists for single-event effect (SEE) susceptibility, which depends on the technology, device layout, and the incident ions' fixed LET value. A Monte Carlo approach for identifying the worst-case energy is applied to certain bulk-Si and silicon-on-insulator (SOI) technologies. Simulation results suggest that the decrease in charge collection beyond the worst-case energy occurs because the secondary particles produced from the high-energy nuclear reactions have less mass and higher energy and are therefore less ionizing than those produced by lower-energy reactions.
IEEE Transactions on Nuclear Science 01/2010; · 1.45 Impact Factor
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B.D. Sierawski,
J.A. Pellish,
R.A. Reed,
R.D. Schrimpf,
K.M. Warren,
R.A. Weller, M.H. Mendenhall,
J.D. Black,
A.D. Tipton,
M.A. Xapsos,
R.C. Baumann,
Xiaowei Deng,
M.J. Campola,
M.R. Friendlich,
H.S. Kim,
A.M. Phan,
C.M. Seidleck
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ABSTRACT: Direct ionization from low energy protons is shown to cause upsets in a 65-nm bulk CMOS SRAM, consistent with results reported for other deep submicron technologies. The experimental data are used to calibrate a Monte Carlo rate prediction model, which is used to evaluate the importance of this upset mechanism in typical space environments. For the ISS orbit and a geosynchronous (worst day) orbit, direct ionization from protons is a major contributor to the total error rate, but for a geosynchronous (solar min) orbit, the proton flux is too low to cause a significant number of events. The implications of these results for hardness assurance are discussed.
IEEE Transactions on Nuclear Science 01/2010; · 1.45 Impact Factor
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ABSTRACT: The effects of materials surrounding the active devices on single event-induced charge generation in a proton-irradiated Si diode array are shown be significant. Particle scatters in layers underlying the device have an impact on the response of a focal plane array. This effect is likely to be important in a variety of semiconductor devices.
IEEE Transactions on Nuclear Science 09/2009; · 1.45 Impact Factor
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J.A. Pellish,
R.A. Reed,
D. McMorrow,
J.S. Melinger,
P. Jenkins,
A.K. Sutton,
R.M. Diestelhorst,
S.D. Phillips,
J.D. Cressler,
V. Pouget,
N.D. Pate,
J.A. Kozub, M.H. Mendenhall,
R.A. Weller,
R.D. Schrimpf,
P.W. Marshall,
A.D. Tipton,
G. Niu
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ABSTRACT: Device-level current transients are induced by injecting carriers using two-photon absorption from a subbandgap pulsed laser and recorded using wideband transmission and measurement equipment. These transients exhibit three distinct temporal trends that depend on laser pulse energy as well as the transverse and vertical charge generation location. The nature of the current transient is controlled by both the behavior of the subcollector-substrate junction and isolation biasing. However, substrate potential modulation, due to deformation of the subcollector-substrate depletion region, is the dominant mechanism affecting transient characteristics.
IEEE Transactions on Nuclear Science 01/2009; · 1.45 Impact Factor
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ABSTRACT: Monte-Carlo radiation transport code is coupled with SPICE circuit level simulation to identify regions of single event upset vulnerability in an SEU hardened flip-flop, as well as predict single event upset cross sections and on-orbit soft error rates under static and dynamic operating conditions.
IEEE Transactions on Nuclear Science 01/2009; · 1.45 Impact Factor
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A.D. Tipton,
J.A. Pellish,
J.M. Hutson,
R. Baumann,
X. Deng,
A. Marshall,
M.A. Xapsos,
H.S. Kim,
M.R. Friendlich,
M.J. Campola,
C.M. Seidleck,
K.A. LaBel, M.H. Mendenhall,
R.A. Reed,
R.D. Schrimpf,
R.A. Weller,
J.D. Black
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ABSTRACT: The effects of device orientation on heavy ion-induced multiple-bit upset (MBU) in 65 nm SRAMs are examined. The MBU response is shown to depend on the orientation of the device during irradiation. The response depends on the direction of the incident ion to the n- and p-wells of the SRAM. The MBU response is simulated using Monte Carlo methods for a space environment. The probability is calculated for event size. Single-bit upsets in the space environment account for 90% of all events with exponentially decreasing probabilities of larger MBU events.
IEEE Transactions on Nuclear Science 01/2009; · 1.45 Impact Factor
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R.D. Schrimpf,
K.M. Warren,
D.R. Ball,
R.A. Weller,
R.A. Reed,
D.M. Fleetwood,
L.W. Massengill, M.H. Mendenhall,
S.N. Rashkeev,
S.T. Pantelides,
M.A. Alles
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ABSTRACT: As integrated circuits become smaller and more complex, it has become increasingly difficult to simulate their responses to radiation. The distance and time scales of relevance extend over orders of magnitude, requiring a multi-scale, hierarchical simulation approach. This paper demonstrates the use of multi-scale simulations to examine two radiation-related problems: enhanced low-dose-rate sensitivity (ELDRS) in bipolar transistors and single-event effects (SEE) in CMOS integrated circuits. Examples are included that demonstrate how information can be passed from simulation tools operating at one level of abstraction to those operating at higher levels, while maintaining accuracy and gaining insight.
IEEE Transactions on Nuclear Science 09/2008; · 1.45 Impact Factor
