Charge collection and SEU from angled ion strikes
Single event upsets (SEUs) are caused in semiconductor microcircuits when charge is deposited in a sensitive volume of the circuit by an incident energetic particle. Collection of this charge causes a loss of information stored at the struck circuit node. Sensitive regions of a microcircuit typically consist of reverse-biased junctions which efficiently collect deposited charge through the influence of drift fields. During laboratory SEU testing, angled ion strikes are often used to conveniently mimic normally incident particles of higher linear energy transfer (LET). This practice is based on ion pathlengths through a thin rectangular parallelepiped (RPP) sensitive volume. Specifically, the authors assume that an angled strike deposits 1/cos{theta} more charge in the sensitive volume, which in turn is assumed to lead to 1/cos{theta} more charge collection at the sensitive node, and an increase in the particle`s effective LET to 1/cos{theta} higher than at normal incidence.
- Research Organization:
- Sandia National Labs., Albuquerque, NM (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE, Washington, DC (United States)
- DOE Contract Number:
- AC04-94AL85000
- OSTI ID:
- 516010
- Report Number(s):
- SAND--97-0483C; CONF-970711--2; ON: DE97004376
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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