Failure tests on 64 Mb SDRAM in radiation environment

Author

Bertazzoni, S. ; Cardarilli, G.C. ; Piergentili, D. ; Salmeri, M. ; Salsano, A. ; Di Giovenale, D. ; Grande, G.C. ; Marinucci, P. ; Sperandei, S. ; Bartalucci, S. ; Massenga, G. ; Ricci, M. ; Bidoli, V. ; De Francesco, D. ; Picozza, P.G. ; Rovelli, A.

Author_Institution

Dept. of Electron. Eng., Univ. of Rome Tor Vergata, Italy

fYear

1999

fDate

36465

Firstpage

158

Lastpage

164

Abstract

In this paper we analyze the failures of Commercial Off The Shelf (COTS) 64 Mb Synchronous DRAM (SDRAM) in a radiation environment. The experimental setup, the test procedure, and the results of three different test runs at the Catania LNS-INFN cyclotron are described in some detail. Three kinds of heavy ions were used to test devices under different conditions of energy release that generates different amount of charge inside the chip. In particular, 30 MeV/AMU ⁹³Nb (LET_Si~21 MeV/(mg/cm²), R_Si~397 μm), 30 MeV/AMU ¹²⁰Sn (LET_Si~30 MeV/(mg/cm²), R_Si~370 μm) and 15 MeV/AMU ¹⁹⁷Au (LET_Si~90 MeV/(mg/cm²), R_Si~95 μm) were used. In all cases, the bare dies were directly bonded on an AF4 carrier to avoid plastic and lead-frame shielding. Different failure types that could affect the operations of a system based on this device were registered. To verify that the characteristics of the events depend on the zone struck by the particle, a specific test was performed

Keywords

DRAM chips; failure analysis; integrated circuit reliability; integrated circuit testing; radiation effects; 64 Mbit; ¹²⁰Sn; ¹⁹⁷Au; ⁹³Nb; AF4 carrier; Au; COTS device; Catania LNS-INFN cyclotron; Nb; SDRAM; Sn; commercial off the shelf device; failure tests; heavy ions; radiation environment; synchronous DRAM; test procedure; Bonding; Cyclotrons; Failure analysis; Gold; Niobium; Performance evaluation; Plastics; SDRAM; Testing; Tin;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Defect and Fault Tolerance in VLSI Systems, 1999. DFT '99. International Symposium on

Conference_Location

Albuquerque, NM

ISSN

1550-5774

Print_ISBN

0-7695-0325-x

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/DFTVS.1999.802881

Filename

802881