Impact of hydrided and non-hydrided materials near transistors on neutron-induced single event upsets

Abe, Shinichiro   ; Sato, Tatsuhiko   ; Kuroda, Junya*; Manabe, Seiya*; Watanabe, Yukinobu*; Liao, W.*; Ito, Kojiro*; Hashimoto, Masanori*; Harada, Masahide   ; Oikawa, Kenichi   ; Miyake, Yasuhiro*

Single event upsets (SEUs) caused by neutrons have been recognized as a serious reliability problem for microelectronic devices on the ground level. In our previous work, it was found that hydride placed in front of the memory chip has considerably impact on SEU cross sections because H ions generated via elastic scattering of neutrons with hydrogen atoms are only emitted in a forward direction. In this study, the effect of components neighboring transistors on neutron-induced SEUs was investigated for 65-nm bulk SRAMs by using PHITS. It was found that the shape of the SEU cross section around few MeV comes from the thickness and the position of components placed in front of transistors when that components do not contains hydrogen atoms. By considering components adjoin memory cells in the test board used in the simulation, measured data at J-PARC BL10 were reproduced well. In addition, it was found that the effect of components neighboring transistors on neutron-induced SERs does not negligible in terrestrial environment.