| With advances in semiconductor technology, semiconductor industry constantly faces critical signal integrity challenges. One of the major concerns is the radiation induced soft errors in combinational logic circuits. Until recently, it was assumed that the Single Event Transients (SETS) were the only source for such errors. However, the Soft Delay effects are also on the increase due to reduced node capacitances. In addition, the coupling effect between interconnects increases Single Event (SE) susceptibility by coupling an SET to electronically unrelated logic paths. Hence, the SE Crosstalk Noise and SE Crosstalk Delay effects also contribute to soft errors. For highly reliable systems such as avionics, security systems, medical systems etc., all sources such as Soft Delay, SE Crosstalk Noise, and SE Crosstalk Delay effects must be considered along with Single Event Transient in reliability analysis.;In this work, ALU Module of AM2901 4-bit Microprocessor Bit-Slice is used to evaluate the effect of various Single Event Effects. The calculation is first done by considering only the Single Event Transients and then with all other sources including Soft Delay effect, and SE coupling effects to understand the contribution of these additional mechanisms. Results are shown using HSPICE simulations with interconnect and device parameters derived from Predictive Technology Model. |
