Evidence of the Robustness of a COTS Soft-Error Free SRAM to Neutron Radiation

Raoul Velazco (1) , J.A. Clemente (2) , G. Hubert (3) , W. Mansour (1) , C. Palomar (2) , F.J. Franco (2) , Maud Baylac (4) , Solenne Rey (4) , O. Rosetto (4) , Francesca Villa (4)

1 TIMA - Techniques de l'Informatique et de la Microélectronique pour l'Architecture des systèmes intégrés
2 UCM - Department of Computer Architecture and Automatic [Madrid]
3 ONERA - The French Aerospace Lab [Toulouse]
4 LPSC - Laboratoire de Physique Subatomique et de Cosmologie

Radiation tests with 15-MeV neutrons were performed in a COTS SRAM including a new memory cell design combining SRAM cells and DRAM capacitors to determine if, as claimed, it is soft-error free and to estimate upper bounds for the cross-section. These tests led to cross-section values two orders of magnitude below those of typical CMOS SRAMs in the same technology node. MUSCA SEP3 simulations complement these results predicting that only high-energy neutrons (> 30 MeV) can provoke bit flips in the studied SRAMs. MUSCA SEP3 is also used to investigate the sensitivity of the studied SRAM to radioactive contamination and to compare it with the one of standard CMOS SRAMs. Results are useful to make predictions about the operation of this memory in environments such as avionics.

Mots clés: soft error; radiation hardness; reliability; COTS; LPSRAM; MUSCA SEP3; neutron tests; SRAM

Domaines: Physique de l'espace [physics.space-ph]; Instrumentations et Détecteurs [physics.ins-det]

Raoul Velazco, J.A. Clemente, G. Hubert, W. Mansour, C. Palomar, et al.. Evidence of the Robustness of a COTS Soft-Error Free SRAM to Neutron Radiation. IEEE Transactions on Nuclear Science, 2014, 61 (6), pp.3103-3108. ⟨10.1109/TNS.2014.2363899⟩. ⟨hal-01221676⟩