Impact of D-Flip-Flop Architectures and Designs on Single-Event Upset Induced by Heavy Ions

Laurent Artola (1) , Guillaume Hubert (1) , Samuel Ducret (2) , Julien Mekki (3) , Ahmad Al Youssef (1) , Nicolas Ricard (2)

1 DPHY, ONERA, Université de Toulouse [Toulouse]
2 SOFRADIR (Veurey-Voroize)
3 CNES - Centre National d'Études Spatiales [Toulouse]

This paper highlights the impact of design on the single-event upset (SEU) sensitivity of D-flip-flops (DFFs) used in a readout circuit (ROIC) under heavy ions. New experimental data obtained at the University of Louvain for several designs are presented. The single-event effect (SEE) prediction tool multi-scale single event phenomena predictive platform is used to investigate the failure occurrences at the circuit level as a function of the design. In some cases, design specificities allow for increasing in the SEU robustness of the DFF. However, it appeared that cryogenic temperatures limit the impact of the design on the SEU sensitivity of DFFs. The results show a very limited impact of the temperature on the SEU occurrence, independent of the layout. These results are consistent with the experimental data presented in recent works regarding single-event transient and single-event functional interrupt. These results allow for performing irradiation tests of complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor IR detector (ROIC) at room temperature instead of cooling down the device during the SEE measurements.

Mots clés: ARCHITECTURE; COMPLEMENTARY METAL-OXIDE-SEMICONDUCTOR (CMOS); DESIGN; FLIP-FLOP; HEAVY IO NS; READOUT CIRCUIT (ROIC); SINGLE-EVENT UPSET (SEU)

Domaines: Micro et nanotechnologies/Microélectronique

Laurent Artola, Guillaume Hubert, Samuel Ducret, Julien Mekki, Ahmad Al Youssef, et al.. Impact of D-Flip-Flop Architectures and Designs on Single-Event Upset Induced by Heavy Ions. IEEE Transactions on Nuclear Science, 2018, 65 (8), pp.1776-1782. ⟨10.1109/TNS.2018.2800742⟩. ⟨hal-02055779⟩