Effects of space radiation on advanced semiconductor devices. Part 2: Cosmic ray simulation experiments for the study of single event upsets in CMOS technology

Cosmic ray induced single event upsets were simulated using cyclotron-produced heavy ions and fission fragments from a 252Cf source. Commercial memories manufactured by Harris, Fujitsu and Toshiba were delidded and irradiated under vacuum. A laboratory heavy ion test system based on a l mu Ci 252Cf source was developed. The spontaneous fission fragments are high energy heavy ions with mean masses of 108.39 and 143.61 amu and mean energies of 105.71 and 80.01MeV respectively. These particles readily produced upsets in all of the devices examined and latch-up in the commercial Harris RAMs. Mean single event upset cross sections of 0.0085, 0.0077 0.013 cm sq are obtained for Harris HM6504-9, Fujitsu MB8404E and Toshiba TC5504AD-3 devices respectively.