Reliability of 3D memories using Orthogonal Latin Square codes

Abstract

Radiation is a cause of errors in electronics systems, especially on those deployed in space. Memories can suffer from different radiation effects including Single Event Upsets and Multiple Cell Upsets. These effects produce corruption of data and may cause a system malfunction. 3D die-stacked memories have been designed to increase bandwidth, reduce latency and limit power consumption. The shielding characteristic of the 3D structure causes a heterogeneous fault tolerance behaviour of the system where some of the inner dies are invulnerable while the outer dies require different protection levels. Orthogonal Latin Square codes are a class of error correcting codes that are modular and can provide different error correction degrees depending on the number of parity bits used. This paper proposed a solution based on current standards to provide dynamic and heterogeneous error correction capabilities to a 3D memory. To do so, Orthogonal Latin Square codes are used.