Assessment of the Amplitude-Duration Criterion for SET/SEU Robustness Evaluation

摘要

The relation between amplitude and duration of the current pulse induced by a high energy ionizing particle has been proposed as a criterion for evaluating the SET and SEU robustness of integrated circuits. This criterion has advantage over the widely accepted critical charge concept in the sense that it is less dependent on the current pulse shape. However, to the best of our knowledge, there is no known report on the impact of design and operating parameters on the amplitude-duration criterion. The need for extensive circuit or device simulations to derive the amplitude-duration curves under varying design and operating parameters makes this approach very time-consuming. In that regard, this work proposes a method to establish the amplitude-duration criterion, with a limited number of circuit simulations, as a rational function in terms of the sizing factors of target and load gates and supply voltage. Initial evaluation on a simple circuit composed of two inverters, designed in 130 nm bulk CMOS technology, has shown that the proposed method provides the accuracy comparable to SPICE simulations.