Development of a radiation-hardened SRAM with EDAC algorithm for fast readout CMOS pixel sensors for charged particle tracking

Abstract

CMOS pixel sensors (CPS) are attractive for use in the innermost particle detectors for charged particle tracking due to their good trade-off between spatial resolution, material budget, radiation hardness, and readout speed. With the requirements of high readout speed and high radiation hardness to total ionizing dose (TID) for particle tracking, fast readout CPS are composed by integrating a data compression block and two SRAM IP cores. However, the radiation hardness of the SRAM IP cores is not as high as that of the other parts in CPS, and thus the radiation hardness of the whole CPS chip is lowered. Especially, when CPS are migrated into 0.18-μm processes, the single event upset (SEU) effects should be also considered besides TID and single event latchup (SEL) effects. This paper presents a radiation-hardened SRAM with enhanced radiation hardness to SEU. An error detection and correction (EDAC) algorithm and a bit-interleaving storage strategy are adopted in the design. The prototype design has been fabricated in a 0.18-μm process. The area of the new SRAM is increased 1.6 times as compared with a non-radiation-hardened SRAM due to the integration of EDAC algorithm and the adoption of radiation hardened layout. The access time is increased from 5 ns to 8 ns due to the integration of EDAC algorithm. The test results indicate that the design satisfy requirements of CPS for charged particle tracking.