0.1-10 MeV Neutron Soft Error Rate in Accelerator and Atmospheric Environments
Neutrons with energies between 0.1-10 MeV can significantly impact the Soft Error Rate (SER) in SRAMs manufactured in scaled technologies, with respect to high-energy neutrons. Their contribution is evaluated in accelerator, ground level and avionic (12 km of altitude) environments. Experimental cross sections were measured with monoenergetic neutrons from 144 keV to 17 MeV, and results benchmarked with Monte Carlo simulations. It was found that even 144 keV neutrons can induce upsets due to elastic scattering. Moreover, neutrons in the 0.1-10 MeV energy range can induce more than 60% of the overall upset rate in accelerator applications, while their contribution can exceed 18% in avionics.…
Proton Direct Ionization Upsets at Tens of MeV
Experimental monoenergetic proton single-event upset (SEU) cross sections of a 65-nm low core-voltage static random access memory (SRAM) were found to be exceptionally high not only at low energies ($ 3 MeV and extending up to tens of MeV. The SEU cross Section from 20-MeV protons exceeds the 200-MeV proton SEU cross Section by almost a factor of 3. Similarly, monoenergetic neutron cross sections at 14 MeV are about a factor of 3 lower than the 20-MeV proton cross section. Because of Monte Carlo (MC) simulations, it was determined that this strong enhancement is due to the proton direct ionization process as opposed to the elastic and inelastic scattering processes that dominate the SEU res…