Improved Fault Tolerant SRAM Cell Design & Layout in 130nm Technology

Technology scaling of CMOS devices has made the integrated circuits vulnerable to single event radiation effects. Scaling of CMOS Static RAM (SRAM) has led to denser packing architectures by reducing the size and spacing of diffusion nodes. However, this trend has led to the increase in charge collection and sharing effects between devices during an ion strike, making the circuit even more vulnerable to a specific single event effect called the single event multiple-node upset (SEMU). In nanometer technologies, SEMU can easily disrupt the data stored in the memory and can be more hazardous than a single event single-node upset. During the last decade, most of the research efforts were mainly focused on improving the single event single-node upset tolerance of SRAM cells by using novel circuit techniques, but recent studies relating to angular radiation sensitivity has revealed the importance of SEMU and Multi Bit Upset (MBU) tolerance for SRAM cells. The research focuses on improving SEMU tolerance of CMOS SRAM cells by using novel circuit and layout level techniques. A novel SRAM cell circuit & layout technique is proposed to improve the SEMU tolerance of 6T SRAM cells with decreasing feature size, making it an ideal candidate for future technologies. The layout is based on strategically positioning diffusion nodes in such a way as to provide charge cancellation among nodes during SEMU radiation strikes, instead of charge build-up. The new design & layout technique can improve the SEMU tolerance levels by up to 20 times without sacrificing on area overhead and hence is suitable for high density SRAM designs in commercial applications. Finally, laser testing of SRAM based configuration memory of a Xilinx Virtex-5 FPGA is performed to analyze the behavior of SRAM based systems towards radiation strikes

Cross-Layer Resiliency Modeling and Optimization: A Device to Circuit Approach

The never ending demand for higher performance and lower power consumption pushes the VLSI industry to further scale the technology down. However, further downscaling of technology at nano-scale leads to major challenges. Reduced reliability is one of them, arising from multiple sources e.g. runtime variations, process variation, and transient errors. The objective of this thesis is to tackle unreliability with a cross layer approach from device up to circuit level

Design of SRAM Based Dosimetry Used for Neutron and Proton Detection

Radiation causes soft errors in memory devices, and a variety of research has been focused on techniques to reduce these soft errors. In this thesis, instead of mitigating soft errors, we present an SRAM based dosimeter which uses the soft error susceptible nature of SRAMs as a means of measuring radiation fluence. This cost effective, real-time dosimeter can be used to calibrate and characterize neutron and proton beams with wide-range spectra. The design of the SRAM dosimeter includes both hardware and software. An array of thirty 16-Mbit off-the-shelf 65 nm SRAMs are used as sensors directly exposed to radiation. An FPGA is used as a processor to analyze the sensor data and communicate with a PC. Finally, a graphical user interface is provided for interacting with the dosimeter. The dosimeter device has been validated at the TRIUMF proton and neutron irradiation facility, and has been used by the facility to carry out various calibration and measurement activities such as proton and neutron beam characterization, beam profile measurements, collimator design and shielding effects measurements

Study of Radiation Effects on 28nm UTBB FDSOI Technology

With the evolution of modern Complementary Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor (CMOS) technology, transistor feature size has been scaled down to nanometers. The scaling has resulted in tremendous advantages to the integrated circuits (ICs), such as higher speed, smaller circuit size, and lower operating voltage. However, it also creates some reliability concerns. In particular, small device dimensions and low operating voltages have caused nanoscale ICs to become highly sensitive to operational disturbances, such as signal coupling, supply and substrate noise, and single event effects (SEEs) caused by ionizing particles, like cosmic neutrons and alpha particles. SEEs found in ICs can introduce transient pulses in circuit nodes or data upsets in storage cells. In well-designed ICs, SEEs appear to be the most troublesome in a space environment or at high altitudes in terrestrial environment. Techniques from the manufacturing process level up to the system design level have been developed to mitigate radiation effects. Among them, silicon-on-insulator (SOI) technologies have proven to be an effective approach to reduce single-event effects in ICs. So far, 28nm ultra-thin body and buried oxide (UTBB) Fully Depleted SOI (FDSOI) by STMicroelectronics is one of the most advanced SOI technologies in commercial applications. Its resilience to radiation effects has not been fully explored and it is of prevalent interest in the radiation effects community. Therefore, two test chips, namely ST1 and AR0, were designed and tested to study SEEs in logic circuits fabricated with this technology. The ST1 test chip was designed to evaluate SET pulse widths in logic gates. Three kinds of the on-chip pulse-width measurement detectors, namely the Vernier detector, the Pulse Capture detector and the Pulse Filter detector, were implemented in the ST1 chip. Moreover, a Circuit for Radiation Effects Self-Test (CREST) chain with combinational logic was designed to study both SET and SEU effects. The ST1 chip was tested using a heavy ion irradiation beam source in Radiation Effects Facility (RADEF), Finland. The experiment results showed that the cross-section of the 28nm UTBB-FDSOI technology is two orders lower than its bulk competitors. Laser tests were also applied to this chip to research the pulse distortion effects and the relationship between SET, SEU and the clock frequency. Total Ionizing Dose experiments were carried out at the University of Saskatchewan and European Space Agency with Co-60 gammacell radiation sources. The test results showed the devices implemented in the 28nm UTBB-FDSOI technology can maintain its functionality up to 1 Mrad(Si). In the AR0 chip, we designed five ARM Cortex-M0 cores with different logic protection levels to investigate the performance of approximate logic protecting methods. There are three custom-designed SRAM blocks in the test chip, which can also be used to measure the SEU rate. From the simulation result, we concluded that the approximate logic methodology can protect the digital logic efficiently. This research comprehensively evaluates the radiation effects in the 28nm UTBB-FDSOI technology, which provides the baseline for later radiation-hardened system designs in this technology

STUDY OF SINGLE-EVENT EFFECTS ON DIGITAL SYSTEMS

Microelectronic devices and systems have been extensively utilized in a variety of radiation environments, ranging from the low-earth orbit to the ground level. A high-energy particle from such an environment may cause voltage/current transients, thereby inducing Single Event Effect (SEE) errors in an Integrated Circuit (IC). Ever since the first SEE error was reported in 1975, this community has made tremendous progress in investigating the mechanisms of SEE and exploring radiation tolerant techniques. However, as the IC technology advances, the existing hardening techniques have been rendered less effective because of the reduced spacing and charge sharing between devices. The Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) roadmap has identified radiation-induced soft errors as the major threat to the reliable operation of electronic systems in the future. In digital systems, hardening techniques of their core components, such as latches, logic, and clock network, need to be addressed. Two single event tolerant latch designs taking advantage of feedback transistors are presented and evaluated in both single event resilience and overhead. These feedback transistors are turned OFF in the hold mode, thereby yielding a very large resistance. This, in turn, results in a larger feedback delay and higher single event tolerance. On the other hand, these extra transistors are turned ON when the cell is in the write mode. As a result, no significant write delay is introduced. Both designs demonstrate higher upset threshold and lower cross-section when compared to the reference cells. Dynamic logic circuits have intrinsic single event issues in each stage of the operations. The worst case occurs when the output is evaluated logic high, where the pull-up networks are turned OFF. In this case, the circuit fails to recover the output by pulling the output up to the supply rail. A capacitor added to the feedback path increases the node capacitance of the output and the feedback delay, thereby increasing the single event critical charge. Another differential structure that has two differential inputs and outputs eliminates single event upset issues at the expense of an increased number of transistors. Clock networks in advanced technology nodes may cause significant errors in an IC as the devices are more sensitive to single event strikes. Clock mesh is a widely used clocking scheme in a digital system. It was fabricated in a 28nm technology and evaluated through the use of heavy ions and laser irradiation experiments. Superior resistance to radiation strikes was demonstrated during these tests. In addition to mitigating single event issues by using hardened designs, built-in current sensors can be used to detect single event induced currents in the n-well and, if implemented, subsequently execute fault correction actions. These sensors were simulated and fabricated in a 28nm CMOS process. Simulation, as well as, experimental results, substantiates the validity of this sensor design. This manifests itself as an alternative to existing hardening techniques. In conclusion, this work investigates single event effects in digital systems, especially those in deep-submicron or advanced technology nodes. New hardened latch, dynamic logic, clock, and current sensor designs have been presented and evaluated. Through the use of these designs, the single event tolerance of a digital system can be achieved at the expense of varying overhead in terms of area, power, and delay

Design, implementation and testing of SRAM based neutron detectors

Neutrons of thermal and high energies can change the value of a bit stored in a Static Random Access Memory (SRAM) memory chip. The effect is non destructive and linearly dependent on the amount of incoming particles, which makes it exploitable for use as a neutron detector. Detection is done by writing a known pattern to the memory and continuously reading it back checking for wrong values. As the SRAM memory is immune to gamma radiation it is ideal for use in for instance medical linear accelerators for detection of neutron dose to a patient. The intention of this work has been twofold: (1) Testing of different SRAM devices of different bit-sizes, manufacturers, feature sizes and voltages for their sensitivity to neutrons of different energies from thermal to high energies. (2) Design and implement detector hardware, firmware and its accompanying readout system for successful use in irradiation testing. The work has been done in close collaboration with Eivind Larsen, whose main contributions has been related to the nuclear physics aspect of the work in addition to arrangements in regard to beam setup and experimentation. Testing have been done at the Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt (PTB) facility in Braunschweig Germany in a quasi-monochromatic neutron beam of 5:8MeV, 8:5MeV and 14:8MeV, finding a dependence of the sensitivity on the energy. In addition there have been testing conducted in the high energy hadron field at CERF at CERN, finding that by using the results from the other experiments an estimated range of the saturation cross section could be determined. Testing was also conducted at two occasions in the 29MeV proton beam at Oslo Cyclotron Laboratory (OCL) in Oslo Norway, where it was found that the detector could be used as a reference detector for beam monitoring and for beam profile characterization. The cross sections of the detectors were found to be comparable to the 14:8MeV cross section found at PTB. Thermal neutron testing of the devices was done in the thermal neutron field of the nuclear reactor at Institute for Energy Technology (IFE) at Kjeller Norway. All the devices were found to be sensitive to the field. Detector electronics, adapted to the different devices, has been built which can withstand the same radiation as the memory device without malfunctioning. There has been a focus on using Commercial Off The Shelf (COTS) components for reducing the total cost of the detector to about 100-200$US. The use of COTS SRAM memory devices also simplifies the reproducibility and availability of spares. The detector currently uses a two way communication between the detector and iv Abstract the readout computer over two pair of cables reducing the amount of cabling needed for experiments. The detectors can be connected to the communication link in a bus fashion, currently enabling a total of 14 detectors to be tested simultaneously from 100m away, over the same cable. Single Event Latch-up (SEL) and problems with irregular count rate of SRAMs created in the 90nm fabrication node has created problems during testing. Some solutions and techniques to mitigate these in hardware and firmware are presented in this work.Master i FysikkMAMN-PHYSPHYS39

Study of Radiation Tolerant Storage Cells for Digital Systems

Single event upsets (SEUs) are a significant reliability issue in semiconductor devices. Fully Depleted Silicon-on-Insulator (FDSOI) technologies have been shown to exhibit better SEU performance compared to bulk technologies. This is attributed to the thin Silicon (Si) layer on top of a Buried Oxide (BOX) layer, which allows each transistor to function as an insulated Si island, thus reducing the threat of charge-sharing. Moreover, the small volume of the Si in FDSOI devices results in a reduction of the amount of charge induced by an ion strike. The effects of Total Ionizing Dose (TID) on integrated circuits (ICs) can lead to changes in gate propagation delays, leakage currents, and device functionality. When IC circuits are exposed to ionizing radiation, positive charges accumulate in the gate oxide and field oxide layers, which results in reduced gate control and increased leakage current. TID effects in bulk technologies are usually simpler due to the presence of only one gate oxide layer, but FDSOI technologies have a more complex response to TID effects because of the additional BOX layer. In this research, we aim to address the challenges of developing cost-effective electronics for space applications by bridging the gap between expensive space-qualified components and high-performance commercial technologies. Key research questions involve exploring various radiation-hardening-by-design (RHBD) techniques and their trade-offs, as well as investigating the feasibility of radiation-hardened microcontrollers. The effectiveness of RHBD techniques in mitigating soft errors is well-established. In our study, a test chip was designed using the 22-nm FDSOI process, incorporating multiple RHBD Flip-Flop (FF) chains alongside a conventional FF chain. Three distinct types of ring oscillators (ROs) and a 256 kbit SRAM was also fabricated in the test chip. To evaluate the SEU and TID performance of these designs, we conducted multiple irradiation experiments with alpha particles, heavy ions, and gamma-rays. Alpha particle irradiation tests were carried out at the University of Saskatchewan using an Americium-241 alpha source. Heavy ion experiments were performed at the Texas A&M University Cyclotron Institute, utilizing Ne, Ar, Cu, and Ag in a 15 MeV/amu cocktail. Lastly, TID experiments were conducted using a Gammacell 220 Co-60 chamber at the University of Saskatchewan. By evaluating the performance of these designs under various irradiation conditions, we strive to advance the development of cost-effective, high-performance electronics suitable for space applications, ultimately demonstrating the significance of this project. When exposed to heavy ions, radiation-hardened FFs demonstrated varying levels of improvement in SEU performance, albeit with added power and timing penalties compared to conventional designs. Stacked-transistor DFF designs showed significant enhancement, while charge-cancelling and interleaving techniques further reduced upsets. Guard-gate (GG) based FF designs provided additional SEU protection, with the DFR-FF and GG-DICE FF designs showing zero upsets under all test conditions. Schmitt-trigger-based DFF designs exhibited improved SEU performance, making them attractive choices for hardening applications. The 22-nm FDSOI process proved more resilient to TID effects than the 28-nm process; however, TID effects remained prominent, with increased leakage current and SRAM block degradation at high doses. These findings offer valuable insights for designers aiming to meet performance and SER specifications for circuits in radiation environments, emphasizing the need for additional attention during the design phase for complex radiation-hardened circuits

Single event upset hardened CMOS combinational logic and clock buffer design

A radiation strike on semiconductor device may lead to charge collection, which may manifest as a wrong logic level causing failure. Soft errors or Single Event Upsets (SEU) caused by radiation strikes are one of the main failure modes in a VLSI circuit. Previous work predicts that soft error rate may dominate the failure rate in VLSI circuit compared to all other failure modes put together. The issue of single event upsets (SEU) need to be addressed such that the failure rate of the chips dues to SEU is in the acceptable range. Memory circuits are designed to be error free with the help of error correction codes. Technology scaling is driving up the SEU rate of combinational logic and it is predicted that the soft error rate (SER) of combinational logic may dominate the SER of unpro-tected memory by the year 2011. Hence a robust combinational logic methodology must be designed for SEU hardening. Recent studies have also shown that clock distribution network is becoming increasingly vulnerable to radiation strike due to reduced capaci-tance at the clock leaf node. A strike on clock leaf node may propagate to many flip-flops increasing the system SER considerably. In this thesis we propose a novel method to improve the SER of the circuit by filtering single event upsets in the combinational logic and clock distribution network. Our ap-proach results in minimal circuit overhead and also requires minimal effort by the de-signer to implement the proposed method. In this thesis we focus on preventing the propagation of SEU rather than eliminating the SEU on each sensitive gate

Impacto de falhas transientes em memórias SRAM em nanotecnologia

Esse trabalho avalia o impacto de falhas transientes induzidos por radiação em cinco topologias de células SRAM: 6T, 8T, 9T, 8T-SER e DICE. A análise explora as características temporais, de dissipação de potência e o limiar de LET durante a operação de armazenamento. As células de memória foram descritas utilizando o modelo preditivo na tecnologia de 16nm. Os resultados mostram o melhor desempenho da célula DICE como a opção mais robusta quanto aos efeitos de radiação. A célula 8T-SER obteve a melhor estabilidade considerando a tolerância ao ruído. Também são apresentados os ganhos na utilização da célula 8T em relação a 6T quando consideradas as métricas de atraso e consumo energético

Computational Modeling and Monte Carlo Simulation of Soft Errors in Flash Memories

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