ABSTRACT
ABSTRACT This chapter surveys soft errors induced by natural radiation on advanced complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) digital technologies. After introducing the radiation background at ground level (including terrestrial cosmic rays and telluric radiation sources), the chapter describes the main mechanisms of interaction between individual particles (neutrons and charged particles) and circuit materials; it also explains the different steps and production mechanisms of soft errors at device and circuit levels. Then, soft error characterisation using accelerated and realtime tests is surveyed, as well as modelling and numerical simulation issues, with a special emphasis on the Monte Carlo simulation of the soft error rate
CONTENTS
2.1 Introduction ..................................................................................................22 2.2 Natural Radiation at Ground Level ..........................................................22
