Response of 5-nm Bulk FinFET SRAMs to Extreme Ionizing and Non-Ionizing Doses
Yoni Xiong, Vanderbilt University
The exposure of semiconductor material to radiation may create interstitial defect clusters in the lattice structure, known as displacement damage (DD). The defect clusters may be caused by a single incident ion (micro-DD) or multiple ions (cumulative DD). For the latest generation of semiconductor technologies, these defect clusters are comparable in size to transistor geometries which may lead to severe degradation of individual transistor characteristics. These parameter degradations may then result in the operational failure of circuits. Since exposure to ions is unavoidable during fabrication and during defense applications, the effects of these defect clusters need to be analyzed for the operational reliability of electronic systems. Custom-designed integrated circuits were exposed to heavy-ions to generate defect clusters within transistor regions and characterize their effects on circuit operation. Additional experiments were done with 10 keV X-rays to determine if charge trapping in oxides contributed to parametric degradation and circuit failure. The experimental results and data analysis revealed that cumulative-DD effects dominate all other types of effects.
Authors: Yoni Xiong1,2, Nicholas Pieper1, Nathaniel Dodds2, Gyorgy Vizkelethy2, N. Nowlin2, B. L. Bhuva1
1Department of ECE, Vanderbilt University, USA
2Sandia National Laboratories, New Mexico, USA
Abstract Author(s): (see above authors)