Electron-Induced Single-Event Effect in 28 nm SRAM-Based FPGA

Abstract

As the feature size of integrated circuit decreases, the critical charge of single-event effect decreases as well, making nano-scale devices more susceptible to the high-energy charged particles during their application in space. Here, we study the electron-induced single-event effect in 28 nm static random-access memory (SRAM)-based field programmable gate array (FPGA) utilizing high-energy electrons with energy of 1 MeV~5 MeV. The experimental results demonstrate that the 3 MeV electrons can cause single-event functional interrupts (SEFIs) in FPGA, while the electrons with other energies cannot. To further explore the mechanism of electron-induced SEFIs in this nanoscale FPGA, we combined Monte Carlo, Technology Computer-Aided Design (TCAD), and Simulation Program with Integrated Circuit Emphasis (SPICE) simulations. It is revealed that the SEFI was mainly caused by the direct ionization effect of high-energy electrons, and the SEFI was related to the interactions between multiple sensitive nodes.