Circuit-level Modeling and Simulation of Single Event Effects in CMOS Electronics

Single event effects (SEE) induced by high energy particles can cause loss of storage data, disorder of program, and even functional error of electronic systems. Modeling and simulation of SEE has attracted much attention in recent years. Circuitlevel simulation is to directly introduce radiation effects terms into the common compact model. To reach higher accuracy and more comprehensive analysis of physical mechanisms, the dependence of single event transients on strike locations was studied and analytically modeled. The principle and approach flow of the proposed circuitlevel SEE simulation were presented. Firstly, basic drift and diffusion collections were considered. Secondly, biasdependent model could be produced. Then the well potential modulation and the bipolar amplification effects were modeled. Circuitlevel simulation results agree well with experiment results. Based on the performed work, transient radiation effects evaluation software (TREES) was developed. The input file should be GDSII layout, which will be parsed and all active region information will be extracted. Other userdefined options include heavy ion setup (LET values), region selection, and stimulus setup, etc. The outputs include waveforms corresponding to each strike, SEE sensitive region mapping, SEE cross section values, etc. The first edition has been integrated into commercial design flow, which can be used as a plugin software into Cadence toolbar. The second edition is a standalone version with no demand for upstream or downstream commercial software. This work is useful to produce precise SEE response predictions for circuit blocks or mediumsize circuits. TREES software can generate SEE sensitive region much faster than timeconsuming devicelevel simulation. For designers who are familiar with circuitlevel simulation, this approach is useful for checking the hardness performance of integrated circuits at design phase.