Radiation Effects on NVIDIA Jetson SoCs: Insights from Heavy Ion Irradiation

This study examines the vulnerability of modern embedded GPUs—specifically the NVIDIA Jetson Orin NX and Xavier NX System-on-Modules (SoMs)—to Single-Event Effects (SEEs) under heavy ion irradiation. Originally developed for safety-critical environments such as automotive systems, these high-performance SoMs integrate advanced computing capabili-ties with built-in functional safety, positioning them as promising candidates for deployment in radiation-prone domains like space. We assess SEE behavior across various ion energy levels, focusing on the central System-on-Chip (SoC), which includes the CPU, GPU, and peripheral components. Our evaluation covers both the runtime and boot-time phases, providing a comprehensive view of fault susceptibility and its implications for system uptime and reliability in space conditions. The paper presents an in-depth analysis of error signatures observed in both the CPU and GPU due to ion strikes, contrasting these with outcomes from previous proton-based studies. Additionally, we compare the two NVIDIA platforms in terms of SEE types—including Single-Event Latch-up (SEL)—to evaluate their relative robustness and inform their potential adoption in space-grade applications.