Neutron-induced soft errors in advanced flash memories

Cellere, G.; Gerardin, Simone; Bagatin, M.; Paccagnella, A.; Visconti, A.; Bonanomi, M.; Beltrami, S.; Roche, Ph.; Gasiot, Gilles; Sørensen, R. Harboe; Virtanen, A.; Frost, Christopher; Fuochi, P.G.; Gorini, G.; Pietropaolo, A.; Platt, S. P.

doi:10.1109/iedm.2008.4796693

Cited by 17 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 5 publications

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“…Cellere et al [1][2] and Gerardin et al [3][4] have been the first to clearly state, using accelerated tests, that atmospheric neutron-induced soft error occurrence is possible in flash memories, although with extremely low probabilities at ground level. The exact physical mechanism(s) responsible of the floating-gate (FG) charge loss under natural radiation is(are) still an open issue; however Butt and Alam [5] recently proposed a complete physical model of single event upsets in floating gate memory cells that very satisfactory agrees with experimental data without any fitting parameter or phenomenological assumption.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 97%

Soft errors induced by natural radiation at ground level in floating gate flash memories

Just¹,

Autran²,

Serre³

et al. 2013

2013 IEEE International Reliability Physics Symposium (IRPS)

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This work reports the combined characterization at mountain altitude (on the ASTEP Platform at 2552 m) and at sealevel of more than ~50 Gbit of 90 nm NOR flash memories subjected to natural radiation (atmospheric neutrons). This wafer-level experiment evidences a limited impact of the terrestrial radiation at ground level on the memory SER evaluated without ECC. Experimental values are compared to estimations obtained from Monte Carlo simulation using the TIARA-G4 code combined with a physical model for charge loss in such floating-gate devices.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 97%

Soft errors induced by natural radiation at ground level in floating gate flash memories

Just¹,

Autran²,

Serre³

et al. 2013

2013 IEEE International Reliability Physics Symposium (IRPS)

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“…In fact, through irradiations with heavy ions at different LET values, we can simulate the effects of neutron-induced secondary by-products. Being electrically uncharged, neutrons induce ionization indirectly through charged secondary particles produced by nuclear reactions with the chip materials [1], [3]. Therefore, the device response to these secondaries, which typically have LETs from just above 0 to about 15 MeV·mg -1 ·cm 2 , determines the neutron cross section.…”

Section: B From Neutrons To Heavy Ionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…NAND Flash memories, with both Single-Level Cell (SLC) and Multi-Level Cell (MLC) architecture, have been reported to be sensitive to atmospheric neutrons [1]. In the NAND architecture a non-zero Bit Error Rate (BER) is expected even without soft errors [2], and application developers are required to implement Error Detection And Correction (EDAC) schemes.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sensitivity of NOR Flash memories to wide-energy spectrum neutrons during accelerated tests

Bagatin

Gerardin

Paccagnella

et al. 2014

2014 IEEE International Reliability Physics Symposium

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We study the effects of exposure to accelerated neu-tron beams of Floating Gate \ud (FG) Flash memories with NOR architecture. Error rates as well as threshold voltage shifts \ud are examined and mechanisms are discussed. A comparison with NAND Flash memories, \ud with both multi-level and single-level cell architecture, is performed. In addition to prompt \ud effects, retention of irradiated cells is analyzed for several months after irradiation. Thanks to \ud tail distributions, we can assess possible rare events

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“…Based on previous discussion on heavy ion effects, several peculiar aspects of neutron-induced errors can be explained, including the larger sensitivity of MLC devices with respect to SLC [80,81], the larger sensitivity of program states corresponding to larger V TH , and the increasing sensitivity with technology scaling. For this reason, neutron effects need to be taken into consideration when forecasting reliability of future devices, even if the failure rate is still within the correcting capabilities of ECC algorithms.…”

Section: Atmospheric Neutronsmentioning

confidence: 99%