Heavy Ion Induced SEU Sensitivity Evaluation of 3D Integrated SRAMs

TL;DR

This study evaluates the sensitivity of 3D integrated SRAMs to heavy ion-induced SEUs using Monte Carlo simulations, revealing structure-dependent differences and potential for aerospace applications.

Contribution

It introduces a simulation-based evaluation method for 3D SRAM SEU sensitivity, highlighting differences between die structures and comparing with planar SRAMs.

Findings

MCU percentage increases with LET for 3D SRAMs.

Back-to-face structure shows higher MCU rates than face-to-face.

3D SRAMs have comparable or lower sensitivity than planar SRAMs.

Abstract

Heavy ions induced single event upset (SEU) sensitivity of three-dimensional integrated SRAMs are evaluated by using Monte Carlo sumulation methods based on Geant4. The cross sections of SEUs and Multi Cell Upsets (MCUs) for 3D SRAM are simulated by using heavy ions with different energies and LETs. The results show that the sensitivity of different die of 3D SRAM has obvious discrepancies at low LET. Average percentage of MCUs of 3D SRAMs rises from 17.2% to 32.95% when LET increases from 42.19 MeV cm2/mg to 58.57MeV cm2/mg. As for a certain LET, the percentage of MCUs shows a notable distinction between face-to-face structure and back-to-face structure. For back-to-face structure, the percentage of MCUs increases with the deeper die. However, the face-to-face die presents the relatively low percentage of MCUs. The comparison of SEU cross sections for planar SRAMs and experiment data are conducted to indicate the effectiveness of our simulation method. Finally, we compare the upset cross sections of planar process and 3D integrated SRAMs. Results demonstrate that the sensitivity of 3D SRAMs is not more than that of planar SRAMs and the 3D structure can be become a great potential application for aerospace and military domain.