Neutron detection using soft errors in dynamic random access memories

Conference · Wed Jan 01 04:00:00 EST 1992 · Transactions of the American Nuclear Society; (United States)

OSTI ID:7226074

Darambara, D G; Spyrou, N M ^[1]

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1. Univ. of Surrey (United Kingdom)

The fact that energetic alpha particles have been observed to be capable of inducing single-event upsets in integrated circuit memories has become a topic of considerable interest in the past few years. One recognized difficulty with dynamic random access memory devices (dRAMs) is that the alpha-particle contamination' present within the dRAM encapsulating material interact sufficiently as to corrupt stored data. The authors essentially utilized the fact that these corruptions may be induced in dRAMs by the interaction of charged particles with the chip of the dRAM itself as a basis of a hardware system for neutron detection with a view to applications in neutron imaging and elemental analysis. The design incorporates a bank of dRAMs on which the particles are incident. Initially, these particles were alpha particles from an appropriate alpha-emitting source employed to assess system parameters. The sensitivity of the device to logic state upsets by ionizing radiation is a function of design and technology parameters, inducing storage node area, node capacitance, operating voltage, minority carrier lifetime, electric fields pattern in the bulk silicon, and specific device geometry. The soft error rate of the device in a given package depends on the flux of alphas, the energy spectrum, the distribution of incident angles, the target area, the total stored charge, the collection efficiency, the cell geometry, the supply voltage, the cycle and refreshing time, and the noise margin.

• OSTI ID: 7226074
• Report Number(s): CONF-920606--
• Conference Information: Journal Name: Transactions of the American Nuclear Society; (United States) Journal Volume: 65
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

440103* -- Radiation Instrumentation-- Nuclear Spectroscopic Instrumentation
46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
ALPHA PARTICLES
BARYONS
CHARGED PARTICLES
DATA COVARIANCES
DESIGN
ELEMENTARY PARTICLES
ENERGY SPECTRA
FERMIONS
HADRONS
MEASURING INSTRUMENTS
MONITORS
NEUTRON MONITORS
NEUTRONS
NUCLEONS
RADIATION MONITORS
SPECTRA