Impact of dynamic voltage scaling and thermal factors on FinFET-based SRAM reliability

FinFET technology appears as an alternative solution to mitigate short-channel effects in traditional CMOS down-scaled technology. Emerging embedded systems are likely to employ FinFET and dynamic voltage scaling (DVS), aiming to improve system performance and energy-efficiency. This paper claims that the use of DVS increases the susceptibility of FinFET-based SRAM cells to soft errors under radiation effects. To investigate that, a methodology that allows determining the critical charge according to the dynamic behaviour of the temperature as a function of the voltage scaling is used. Obtained results support our claim by showing that both temperature and voltage scaling can increase up to five times the susceptibility of FinFET-based SRAM cells to the occurrence of soft errors.