Radiation-induced temporal errors become a significant issue for circuit reliability. We measured the pulse widths of radiation-induced single event transients (SETs) from pMOSFETs and nMOSFETs separately. Test results show that heavy-ion induced SET rates of nMOSFETs were twice as high as those of pMOSFETs and that neutron-induced SETs occurred only in nMOSFETs. It was confirmed that the SET distribution from inverter chains can be estimated using the SET distribution from pMOSFETs and nMOSFETs by considering the difference in load capacitance of the measurement circuits.

Superconducting detectors have been shown to be superior to other techniques in some applications. However, superconducting devices have not been used for detecting neutrons often in the past decades. We have been developing various superconducting neutron detectors. In this paper, we review our attempts to measure neutrons using superconducting stripline detectors with DC bias currents. These include attempts with a MgB2-based detector and a Nb-based detector with a 10B converter.

We propose a radiation-hardened Flip-Flop (FF) with stacked transistors based on the Adaptive Coupling Flip-Flop (ACFF) with low power consumption in a 65 nm FDSOI process. The slave latch in ACFF is much weaker against soft errors than the master latch. We design several FFs with stacked transistors in the master or slave latches to mitigate soft errors. We investigate radiation hardness of the proposed FFs by α particle and neutron irradiation tests. The proposed FFs have higher radiation hardness than a conventional DFF and ACFF. Neutron irradiation and α particle tests revealed no error in the proposed AC Slave-Stacked FF (AC_SS FF) which has stacked transistors only in the slave latch. We also investigate radiation hardness of the proposed FFs by heavy ion irradiation. The proposed FFs maintain higher radiation hardness up to 40 MeV-cm2/mg than the conventional DFF. Stacked inverters become more sensitive to soft errors by increasing tilt angles. AC_SS FF achieves higher radiation hardness than ACFF with the performance equivalent to that of ACFF.

One of the fundamental problems in many-pixel detectors implemented in cryogenics environments is the number of bias and read-out wires. If one targets a megapixel range detector, number of wires should be significantly reduced. One possibility is that the detectors are serially connected and biased by using only one line and read-out is accomplished by on-chip circuitry. In addition to the number of pixels, the detectors should have fast response times, low dead times, high sensitivities, low inter-pixel crosstalk and ability to respond to simultaneous irradiations to individual pixels for practical purposes. We have developed an equivalent circuit model for a serially connected superconducting strip line detector (SSLD) array together with the read-out electronics. In the model we take into account the capacitive effects due to the ground plane under the detector, effects of the shunt resistors fabricated under the SSLD layer, low pass filters placed between the individual pixels that enable individual operation of each pixel and series resistors that prevents the DC bias current flowing to the read-out electronics as well as adjust the time constants of the inductive SSLD loop. We explain the results of investigation of the following parameters: Crosstalk between the neighbor pixels, response to simultaneous irradiation, dead times, L/R time constants, low pass filters, and integration with the SFQ front-end circuit. Based on the simulation results, we show that SSLDs are promising devices for detecting a wide range of incident radiation such as neurons, X-rays and THz waves in many-pixel configurations.

We measure neutron-induced Single Event Upsets (SEUs) and Multiple Cell Upsets (MCUs) on Flip-Flops (FFs) in a 65-nm bulk CMOS process in order to evaluate dependence of MCUs on cell distance and well-contact density using four different shift registers. Measurement results by accelerated tests show that MCU/SEU is up to 23.4% and it is exponentially decreased by the distance between latches on FFs. MCU rates can be drastically reduced by inserting well-contact arrays between FFs. The number of MCUs is reduced from 110 to 1 by inserting well-contact arrays under power and ground rails.

This paper describes a soft-error tolerant and margin-enhanced nMOS-pMOS reversed 6T SRAM cell. The 6T SRAM bitcell comprises pMOS access and driver transistors, and nMOS load transistors. Therefore, the nMOS and pMOS masks are reversed in comparison with those of a conventional bitcell. In scaled process technology, The pMOS transistors present advantages of small random dopant fluctuation, strain-enhanced saturation current, and small soft-error sensitivity. The four-pMOS and two-nMOS structure improves the soft-error rate plus operating margin. We conduct SPICE and neutron-induced soft-error simulations to evaluate the n-p reversed 6T SRAM bitcell in 130-nm to 22-nm processes. At the 22-nm node, a multiple-cell-upset and single-bit-upset SERs are improved by 34% and 51% over a conventional 6T cell. Additionally, the static noise margin and read cell current are 2.04× and 2.81× improved by leveraging the pMOS benefits.

This paper presents a proposed NMOS-centered 6T SRAM cell layout that reduces a neutron-induced multiple-cell-upset (MCU) SER on a same wordline. We implemented an 1-Mb SRAM macro in a 65-nm CMOS process and irradiated neutrons as a neutron-accelerated test to evaluate the MCU SER. The proposed 6T SRAM macro improves the horizontal MCU SER by 67–98% compared with a general macro that has PMOS-centered 6T SRAM cells.

This paper presents a new 8T (8-transistor) SRAM cell layout mitigating multiple-bit upset (MBU) in a divided wordline structure. Because bitlines along unselected columns are not activated, the divided wordline structure eliminates a half-select problem and achieves low-power operation, which is often preferred for low-power/low-voltage applications. However, the conventional 8T SRAM with the divided wordline structure engenders MBUs because all bits in the same word are physically adjoining. Consequently, it is difficult to apply an error correction coding (ECC) technique to it. In this paper, we propose a new 8T cell layout pattern that separates internal latches in SRAM cells using both an n-well and a p-substrate. We saw that a SEU cross section of nMOS is 3.5–4.5 times higher than that of pMOS (SEU: single event upset; a cross section signifies a sensitive area to soft error effects). By using a soft-error simulator, iRoC TFIT, we confirmed that the proposed 8T cell has better neutron-induced MBU tolerance. The simulator includes soft-error measurement data in a commercial 65-nm process. The MBU in the proposed 8T SRAM is improved by 90.70% and the MBU soft error rate (SER) is decreased to 3.46 FIT at 0.9 V when ECC is implemented (FIT: failure in time). Additionally, we conducted Synopsys 3-D TCAD simulation, which indicates that the linear energy transfer (LET) threshold in SEU is also improved by 66% in the proposed 8T SRAM by a common-mode effect.

This paper presents measurement results of bit error rate (BER) and soft error rate (SER) improvement on 150-nm FD-SOI 7T/14T (7-transistor/ 14-transistor) SRAM test chips. The reliability of the 7T/14T SRAM can be dynamically changed by a control signal depending on an operating condition and application. The 14T dependable mode allocates one bit in a 14T cell and improves the BER in a read operation and SER in a retention state, simultaneously. We investigate its error rate mitigating mechanisms using Synopsys TCAD simulator. In our measurements, the minimum operating voltage was improved by 100 mV, the alpha-induced SER was suppressed by 80.0%, and the neutron-induced SER was decreased by 34.4% in the 14T dependable mode over the 7T normal mode.

We propose a neutron diffractometer system based on MgB2 thin film detectors and an SFQ signal processor. Small dimensions of MgB2 thin film detectors and high processing capability of the single flux quantum (SFQ) circuits enable us to handle several thousand or more detectors in a cryocooler, leading to a very compact system. In addition, the system can provide many diffraction patterns for different kinetic energies simultaneously. Kinetic energy is determined for individual neutrons by means of the time-of-flight method by using SFQ time-to-digital converters (TDCs). Digital outputs of the TDCs are multiplexed in time domain and sent to room-temperature electronics with reduced number of cables. A dual-input SFQ signal processor including TDCs and a multiplexer has been successfully demonstrated with a time resolution of 20 ns and power consumption of 400 µW. These values show high feasibility of the neutron diffraction system proposed here.

A quantitative study is made on performance of neutron penumbral imaging with a toroidal-segment aperture, and it focused on isoplanaticity of aperture point spread function and effect of the non-isoplanaticity on the reconstructed images. The results show that the aperture point spread function is satisfactorily isoplanatic for a small field of view, while for a large field of view the point spread function is not satisfactorily isoplanatic resulting in some distortion in the reconstructed image and reduction of resolution.

We have developed a neutron imaging system based on the penumbral imaging technique. The system consists of a penumbral aperture and a sensitive neutron detector. The aperture was made from a thick (6 cm) tungsten block with a toroidal taper. It can effectively block 14-MeV neutrons and provide a satisfactory sharp, isoplanatic (space-invariant) point spread function (PSF). A two-dimensional scintillator array, which is coupled with a gated two-stage image intensifier system and a CCD camera, was used as a sensitive neutron detector. It can record the neutron image with high sensitivity and high signal-to-noise ratio. The reconstruction was performed with a Wiener filter. The spatial resolution of the reconstructed neutron image was estimated to be 31 µm by computer simulation. Experimental demonstration has been achieved by imaging 14-MeV deuterium-tritium neutrons emitted from a laser-imploded target.