Abstract:

As processes scale into the nanometer domain, reliability has become one of the important design metrics. Among the different reliability challenges, soft errors are becoming the biggest cause of failures in-the-field. By shrinking device transistors, alpha particles and atmospheric neutrons can cause unpredictable bit flips called soft errors. Traditionally, SRAMs were the most affected due to these soft errors. However, as the industry moves along the technology roadmap, combinational logic which was earlier immune to such errors, are becoming more susceptible to radiation strikes. These radiation strikes cause voltage transients, known as Single Event Transients (SET), in combinational logic. SETs could cause soft errors if they get latched by a subsequent latch or flip-flop. On the other hand radiation strikes cause instant bit flips, known as Single Event Up-sets, in sequential elements such as memories and latches/flip-flops. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)