FPGA Qualification and Failure Rate Estimation Methodology for LHC Environments Using Benchmarks Test Circuits

When studying the behavior of a field programmable gate array (FPGA) under radiation, the most commonly used methodology consists in evaluating the single-event effect (SEE) cross section of its elements individually. However, this method does not allow the estimation of the device failure rate when using a custom design. An alternative approach based on benchmark circuits is presented in this article. It allows standardized application-level testing, which makes the comparison between different FPGAs easier. Moreover, it allows the evaluation of the FPGA failure rate independent of the application that will be implemented. The employed benchmark circuit belongs to the ITC’99 benchmark suite developed at Politecnico di Torino. Using the proposed methodology, the response of four FPGAs—the NG-Medium, the ProASIC3, the SmartFusion2, and the PolarFire—was evaluated under high-energy protons. Radiation tests with thermal neutrons were also conducted on the PolarFire to assess its potential sensitivity to them. Moreover, its performances in terms of total ionizing dose (TID) effects have been evaluated by measuring the degradation of the propagation delay during irradiatio

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Atypical Effect of Displacement Damage on LM124 Bipolar Integrated Circuits

International audienceLM124 operational amplifiers from three different manufacturers are irradiated with 60Co gamma rays and neutrons. During neutrons irradiation, one of the three integrated circuits exhibits an unexpected slew rates increase while its open loop gain and supply bias current follow the usual monotonic decrease as described in the literature. Analysis at circuit level shows that this phenomenon is due to an increase in the radiation-induced base current of the transistor used as buffer stage in the amplification chain. It is then demonstrated that a slight modification of the buffer transistor design, which is not implemented on the two other devices, enhances this phenomenon. Finally, the impact of the buffer transistor design on displacement damage and total ionizing dose response is investigated

Further studies on the physics potential of an experiment using LHC neutrinos

We discuss an experiment to investigate neutrino physics at the LHC, with emphasis on tau flavour. As described in our previous paper Beni et al (2019 J. Phys. G: Nucl. Part. Phys. 46 115008), the detector can be installed in the decommissioned TI18 tunnel, ≈ 480 m downstream the ATLAS cavern, after the first bending dipoles of the LHC arc. The detector intercepts the intense neutrino flux, generated by the LHC beams colliding in IP1, at large pseudorapidity η, where neutrino energies can exceed a TeV. This paper focuses on exploring the neutrino pseudorapity versus energy phase space available in TI18 in order to optimize the detector location and acceptance for neutrinos originating at the pp interaction point, in contrast to neutrinos from pion and kaon decays. The studies are based on the comparison of simulated pp collisions at √s = 13 TeV: PYTHIA events of heavy quark (c and b) production, compared to DPMJET minimum bias events (including charm) with produced particles traced through realistic LHC optics with FLUKA. Our studies favour a configuration where the detector is positioned off the beam axis, slightly above the ideal prolongation of the LHC beam from the straight section, covering 7.4 < η < 9.2. In this configuration, the flux at high energies (0.5-1.5 TeV and beyond) is found to be dominated by neutrinos originating directly from IP1, mostly from charm decays, of which ∼50% are electron neutrinos and ∼5% are tau neutrinos. The contribution of pion and kaon decays to the muon neutrino flux is found small at those high energies. With 150 f b-1 of delivered LHC luminosity in Run 3 the experiment can record a few thousand very high energy neutrino charged current (CC) interactions and over 50 tau neutrino CC events. These events provide useful information in view of a high statistics experiment at HL-LHC. The electron and muon neutrino samples can extend the knowledge of the charm PDF to a new region of x, which is dominated by theory uncertainties. The tau neutrino sample can provide first experience on reconstruction of tau neutrino events in a very boosted regime

R2E

The R2E (" Radiation to Electronics ") project [1] mandate is to follow up on the equipment failures related to radiation and propose mitigation strategy. One of the key parameter to evaluate the cause of the failures and the strategy on how to avoid them is a precise knowledge of the radiation field around the machine. An overview of the ra-diati on levels for the 2015 and 2016 in the LHC is reported along with the scaling factors to be used for the future runs. The link between radiation levels and failures on the electronic equipment for the 2016 run is discussed in this work with a particular stress on the causes of failures and the mitigation actions which have been or will take place. The future impact of the non-mitigated failures on the LHC operation is also discussed

R2E – is it still an issue?

The R2E (" Radiation to Electronics ") project [1] mandate is to follow up on the equipment failures related to radiation and propose mitigation strategy. In this respect, 2015 LHC operation has continued to provide valuable inputs for the detailed analysis of radiation levels and radiation induced equipment failures. An overview of the mitigation strategy from the 2011 up to the 2015 is necessary to highlight the improvement obtained in terms of failure rate. The causes of failure, the radiation levels around the LHC and the mitigation actions of the 2015 run are analysed and their future impact on operation in terms of failure rate are reported in this work

Reliability Analysis of Ethernet-Based Solutions for Data Transmission in the CERN Radiation Environment

The necessity for a radiation-tolerant communication link, compatible with a wide range of devices, has prompted the study of different solutions than those currently employed at CERN. With Ethernet being one of the most established communication protocols for commercial and industrial applications, most of the efforts were concentrated toward that direction. To evaluate the feasibility of using this protocol in the radiation environment of CERN, several Ethernet-based solutions have been implemented based on a system on chip (SoC), in which a flash-based field-programmable gate array (FPGA) and a $\mu$ controller coexist, making the system highly configurable. The proposed solutions are qualified at the system level using accelerated testing means, in order to compare their performances. The results of this study are then used to estimate the reliability of the different solutions using classic models, considering a variety of different installation scenarios inside the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) tunnel

New Testing Methodology of an Analog to Digital Converter for the LHC Mixed Radiation Field

International audienc

Thermal neutron SRAM detector characterization at the CERN Mixed Field Facility, CHARM

The radiation spectra in the CERN Large Hadron Collider (LHC) ranges from GeV down to thermal neutron levels. It is known that the thermal neutrons can significantly affect the electronic devices and systems exposed to the radiation environment of the tunnel and the shielded areas of the LHC. CERN’s Radiation Monitoring system (RadMon) uses Static Random Access Memories (SRAM) to measure the contributions to the spectrum from both the High Energy Hadrons (>20MeV) and Thermal neutrons. A knowledge of the SRAM thermal neutron cross section is required for evaluating their contribution to the particle spectra and thus identifying the thermal neutron critical area. This paper describes a procedure to acquire, by means of RadMon system, the thermal neutron cross section of SRAM memories in a mixed field environment. The capabilities of the CERN High AcceleRator Mixed field facility (CHARM) to measure the thermal neutron sensitivity are then investigated. The procedure is evaluated by comparing the thermal neutron cross sections obtained at CHARM and the one measured using a pure thermal neutron beam. The same procedure could be applied to other devices to understand their susceptibility