On the Single Event Upset Susceptibility of 10-nm SRAM Devices to Ionizing Radiation

In this work, we report on the radiation-induced soft error susceptibilities of three SRAM cell types fabricated on a 10nm technology to various types of ionizing radiation, including high-energy and thermal neutrons, high-energy protons, alpha-particles, beta radiation, and heavy ions. Our results highlight that: a) high-energy neutron upset rates continue to dominate the total soft error rate (SER) in terrestrial radiation environments, and b) soft error rates continue to benefit from technology scaling. Accelerated testing projections demonstrate a ~20x reduction in bit-level soft error rates between 45nm and 10nm SRAM cells of the same type. Results obtained from a 3-year real-time test campaign are discussed and compared to accelerated testing projections and previous real-time testing results published by this team. Interestingly, the 10nm real-time testing results show a consistent underestimation when compared to projections obtained from accelerated beam testing. It is speculated that scattering and absorption of high-energy neutrons in the real-time testing setup are the main reasons for the observed discrepancy. Finally, single event upset data are compared with selected space-weather databases, specifically Gamma Ray Bursts (GRB), Ground Level Enhancements (GLE), and Solar Energetic Proton events (SEP) collected by the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites (GOES). No clear correlation is observed.