Soft Errors Induced by High-Energy Electrons

Abstract

In the semiconductor reliability community, soft error research has primarily focused on neutrons and alpha particles. However, there are certain situations and environments in which high-energy electrons may also lead to soft errors. In this paper, we show that high energy electrons and the secondary particles created by them are capable of producing soft errors. In this paper, the energy dependence of electron-induced soft errors in a 28 nm bulk CMOS SRAM-based FPGA is recorded. Error rates are measured in both the embedded RAM and configuration RAM of the FPGA. This paper is the first research to explore the energy dependence of electron-induced single-event upsets in a commercial-off-the-shelf device. The measured electron-induced error cross sections are between $10^{{-20}}$ and $10^{{-17}}~ {\rm cm}^{{2}}$ /bit depending on memory cell tested and the electron energy. Monte Carlo energy deposition simulations are used to further explore the mechanisms involved.