Endurance Measurement of Semiconductor Chips ―Beam Test by Particle Accelerator for Single Event Effects―

Abstract

Our daily life highly depends on semiconductor devices such as smart phones. They are also used for social facilities and automotive which must have higher reliability. The soft error has been recognized for these four decades, which is the phenomenon that contents of semiconductor storage elements are flipped by neutron or alpha particles. Since it rarely occurs on the terrestrial region, acceleration tests are mandatory to evaluate radiation hardness. This paper first introduces the single event effects on semiconductor chips. Then soft-error mitigation techniques are explained on process, device and circuit levels. We finally explain how to measure radiation hardness by particle accelerators and conclude this paper.