Proton induced single event upset cross section prediction for 0.15 μm six-transistor (6T) silicon-on-insulator static random access memories

Abstract

In this paper, an efficient physics-based method to estimate the saturated proton upset cross section for six-transistor (6T) silicon-on-insulator (SOI) static random access memory (SRAM) cells using layout and technology parameters is proposed. This method calculates the effects of radiation based on device physics. The simple method handles the problem with ease by SPICE simulations, which can be divided into two stages. At first, it uses a standard SPICE program to predict the cross section for recoiling heavy ions with linear energy transfer (LET) of 14 MeV-cm 2 /mg. Then, the predicted cross section for recoiling heavy ions with LET of 14 MeV-cm 2 /mg is used to estimate the saturated proton upset cross section for 6T SOI SRAM cells with a simple model. The calculated proton induced upset cross section based on this method is in good agreement with the test results of 6T SOI SRAM cells processed using 0.15 mm technology.