Impact of Scaling on Neutron-Induced Soft Error in SRAMs From a 250 nm to a 22 nm Design Rule

Abstract

Trends in terrestrial neutron-induced soft-error in SRAMs from a 250 nm to a 22 nm process are reviewed and predicted using the Monte-Carlo simulator CORIMS, which is validated to have less than 20% variations from experimental soft-error data on 180-130 nm SRAMs in a wide variety of neutron fields like field tests at low and high altitudes and accelerator tests in LANSCE, TSL, and CYRIC. The following results are obtained: 1) Soft-error rates per device in SRAMs will increase x6-7 from 130 nm to 22 nm process; 2) As SRAM is scaled down to a smaller size, soft-error rate is dominated more significantly by low-energy neutrons (<; 10 MeV); and 3) The area affected by one nuclear reaction spreads over 1 M bits and bit multiplicity of multi-cell upset become as high as 100 bits and more.