0000000000133022

AUTHOR

Ernesto Della Sala

Compact instrumentation for radiation tolerance test of flash memories in space environment

Aim of this work is the description of a test equipment, designed to be integrated on board of a microsatellite, able to investigate the radiation tolerance of non-volatile memory arrays in a real flight experiment. An FPGA-based design was adopted to preserve a high flexibility degree. Besides standard Program/Read/Erase functions, additional features such as failure data screening and latch-up protection have been implemented. The instrument development phase generated, as a by-product, a non-rad-hard version of the instrument that allowed performing in-situ experiments using 60Co and 10 MeV Boron irradiation facilities on Ground. Preliminary measurement results are reported to show the i…

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Radiation tolerance of NROM embedded products

Radiation tolerance of NROM memories is demonstrated at the level of industrial 4 Mbit memory embedded modules, specifically not designed for operation in radiation harsh environments. The memory fabricated in 0.18 um technology remains fully functional after total ionization doses exceeding 100 krad. The tests were performed by irradiating with γ-rays (60Co source) and 10 MeV 11B ions in active (during programming/erase and read-out) and passive (no bias) modes. Comprehensive statistics were obtained by using large memory arrays and comparison of the data with the parameters of irradiated single cells allowed deep understanding of the physical phenomena in the irradiated NROM devices for b…

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