The Analysis of Single Event Effects and Total Ionizing Dose

Abstract

Single event (SE) effects and total ionizing dose (TID) radiation for the 7-nm bulk FinFET technology node are investigated. SE cross-sections are investigated at near-threshold voltage (NTV) supply voltages for a variety of threshold voltage (VT) options as a function of temperature and supply voltage. Simulations show an increase in feedback-loop delay and single-event transient (SET) pulse-width for reduced supply voltages. Experimental results show changes in SET pulse-width dominate changes in feedback-loop delay at reduced supply voltages. The rate of change between feedback-loop delay and SET pulse-width is closest for the LVT D-FF, resulting in the reduced vulnerability. Additionally, SE cross-section showed minimal changes when temperature was increased from 25ºC to 100ºC at nominal supply voltages. At reduced supply voltages, SE cross-section decreased significantly for the same temperature range. Furthermore, TID effects are evaluated as a function of supply voltage and frequency. Results show that for dynamic test conditions, supply voltage strongly influences the TID response of ring oscillator (RO) circuits. Additional results show that increasing the operational frequency results in smaller increases in leakage currents individual transistors and bigger increases in inverter delays. However, the overall degradations in circuit-level parameters were less than 1% for TID exposures of 435 krad(SiO2), clearly showing the resiliency of the 7-nm bulk FinFET node. These results give designers insight on how to meet SE specifications for low-power and high-temperature applications and will allow designers to estimate the effects of TID exposure on circuit-level parameters for the 7-nm bulk FinFET technology node.