Test Circuit for Measuring Pulse Widths of Single-Event Transients Causing Soft Errors

Author

Narasimham, Balaji ; Gadlage, Matthew J. ; Bhuva, Bharat L. ; Schrimpf, Ronald D. ; Massengill, Lloyd W. ; Holman, William Timothy ; Witulski, Arthur F. ; Galloway, Kenneth F.

Author_Institution

Broadcom Corp., Irvine, CA, USA

Volume

22

Issue

1

fYear

2009

Firstpage

119

Lastpage

125

Abstract

A novel on-chip test circuit to measure single-event transient (SET) pulse widths has been developed and implemented in IBM 130-nm and 90-nm processes for characterizing logic soft errors. Test measurements with heavy ions and alpha particles show transient widths ranging from 100 ps to over 1 ns, comparable to legitimate logic signals in such technologies. Design options to limit the SET pulse width and hence to mitigate soft errors are evaluated with the test circuit to demonstrate the effectiveness of such design techniques.

Keywords

alpha-particle effects; combinational circuits; error analysis; integrated circuit testing; integrated logic circuits; ion beam effects; alpha particles; heavy ions; logic soft errors; on-chip test circuit; single-event transient pulse widths; Alpha particles; Circuit testing; Combinational circuits; Error analysis; Integrated circuit technology; Logic testing; Particle measurements; Pulse circuits; Pulse measurements; Space vector pulse width modulation; Alpha particle; combinational logic; guard rings; integrated circuit reliability; pulse width; radiation hardening; single event; single-event transient (SET); soft error; soft error rate (SER);

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Semiconductor Manufacturing, IEEE Transactions on

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0894-6507

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/TSM.2008.2010742

Filename

4773476