Soft error estimates for fabless companies

Soft errors have gained in importance over the years. Until recently only the large microprocessor and memory companies were interested in this reliability issue. However, with increasingly large number of devices on a chip, smaller fabless companies must now contend with it. Only a few companies have the extensive knowledge of the process and the required expertise in high energy physics to characterize the soft error rate based on first principles. This paper examines this issue and provides guidance on how to characterize the soft error rate of chips using circuit simulation for current technology nodes.