ABSTRACT
This chapter demonstrates that, contrary to first impressions, there is indeed an equation that describes single event rates, and moreover that Monte Carlo simulation is simply one means to obtain the solution of it. It shows that, if sufficiently restrictive assumptions are made, a conventional analytical solution of the rate equation is possible. In most Monte Carlo radiation transport implementations, a radiation quantum interacts with one and only one particle at a time. In the Monte Carlo method, a detailed physical model of the world volume is created, along with a corresponding physical, circuit, or phenomenological model of the effect response. The basic assumption of the composite sensitive volume model is that circuit effects can be predicted, at least probabilistically, from knowledge of the charge collected on specific device nodes. Monte Carlo simulations of ion-induced soft error rates reveal the detailed physics of soft errors more clearly than has heretofore been possible with ad hoc models and analytical computations.
