A Method of Predicting Muon-Induced SEUs Using Proton Tests and Monte Carlo Simulation

Abstract

We have proposed a method based on proton accelerating test and Monte Carlo simulation to predict single event upsets (SEUs) caused by positive muons. The proton energy is mapped to the muon one by making their Bragg peaks overlapped at the sensitive volume (SV) in a device. The fluxes of incident particles reaching the SV are different between protons and positive muons due to the energy straggling in the device. This difference is considered in our newly proposed method and the proton SEU cross section is converted to the corresponding muon SEU cross section. We have demonstrated the feasibility of this method using the experimental data of muon-induced SEUs and the simulation result of proton-induced ones for a 65-nm bulk SRAM. The feasibility test showed good agreement between the experimental muon SEU cross sections and the muon SEU ones predicted by the proton simulation.