Terrestrial Radiation Effects in ULSI Devices and Electronic Systems

Chapter 9Summary

9.1 Summary of Terrestrial Radiation Effects on ULSI Devices and Electronic Systems

Here the history of soft-error research is reviewed and five or six paradigm shifts, mainly relevant to drastic change in faulty modes and device/systems in history are highlighted. Three hierarchies in faulty conditions, fault/error/failure, are proposed as a basis for evaluation of terrestrial radiation effects and their mitigation techniques. Current concerns over failures in industrial fields such as avionics, the motor industry and networks/data centres are summarised. Sources of terrestrial radiation include photons (gamma-ray), electrons (beta-ray), helium ions (alpha-ray), muons, protons and neutrons with wide energy ranges (thermal, epi-thermal to gigaelectron volts). The properties of secondary cosmic particles produced by nuclear spallation reaction of cosmic protons with atmospheric nuclei in inner space are summarised. The spectra of terrestrial radiation, such as proton, electron, muon, pion, neutron and alpha are evaluated. Radioisotopes, observable at ground level, are surveyed as radiation sources of alpha (helium nucleus), beta (electron) and gamma (photon) rays.

The fundamentals of electronic devices DRAM (Dynamic Random Access Memory), CMOS (Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor) inverter, SRAM (Static Random Access Memory), floating body memory, sequential and combinational logic devices) and systems FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Array) and processors ...