Evaluating CMOS chip sensitivity parameters to single event upsets under influence of neutrons by the burst generation rate function

Abstract

The development of the technological process in electronics has led to the problem of single event upsets (SEU) in microchips when exposed to neutrons causing loss of information and errors. To evaluate sensitivity of CMOS VLSI to SEU caused by neutrons we propose BGR method. To test this approach we apply BGR method to the data obtained by irradiation of several types of ICs:Artix and Spartan FPGAs (Xilinx) and STM32 microcontroller (ST Microelectronics). Test setup was built using modular devices by National Instruments. In this study, we also consider the areas for which neutron influence evaluation is relevant and present an overview of the available data on neutron induced SEU in CMOS chips. A description of the BGR method and experimental results are given.

Keywords

• information security, single event upset (seu), neutrons, cmos very large-scale integration (vlsi), burst generation rate (bgr), microprocessors (mpu), microcontrollers (mcu), field-programmable gate array (fpga).