Vanderbilt Radiation Effects ResearchInstitute for Space and Defense Electronics
Ron SchrimpfRon SchrimpfDepartment of Electrical Engineering Department of Electrical Engineering
and Computer Scienceand Computer Science
Vanderbilt University
Located in Nashville, TN
~11,000 students Private Engineering, Arts &
Sciences, Medicine, Law, Business, Education, Music…
Vanderbilt Radiation Effects Program
25 graduate students 5 undergraduate students Open access Basic research and support of
ISDE engineering tasks Training ground for rad-effects
engineers
14 full time engineers 2 support staff ITAR compliant Support specific radiation effects
engineering needs in government and industry
Radiation Effects Research (RER) Group
Institute for Space and Defense Electronics (ISDE)
World’s largest university-based radiation effects program
10 faculty with extensive expertise in radiation-effects Beowulf supercomputing cluster Custom software codes EDA tools from multiple commercial vendors Multi-million $ aggregate annual funding Test and characterization capabilities and partnerships
What is ISDE ?
Founded January 1, 2003 as a resource to support radiation effects analysis and rad-hard design needs
Brings academic resources/expertise and real-world engineering to bear on system-driven needs
ISDE provides: Government and industry radiation-effects resource
• Modeling and simulation• Design support: rad models, hardening by design• Technology support: assessment, characterization
Flexible staffing driven by project needs• 10 Faculty• 25 Graduate students• 14 Professional, non-tenured engineering staff
ISDE Capabilities
Characterize radiation and reliability responses of technologies Develop and maintain device and circuit models and software
tools Apply simulation tools in support of design and characterization Assist in IC and system design activities Support development of test plans and standards Interpret radiation and reliability test results Assess capabilities and limitations of new technologies
• Deep submicron (scaling, new materials, new structures)• Opto, nano, bio
Provide training, documentation and instructional materials Serve as a radiation effects “SWAT” team
Sampling of Current Projects
• U.S. Navy Trident II Life Extension (Draper prime)• DTRA Radiation Hardened Microelectronics• DARPA/DTRA Radiation Hardened by Design (Boeing prime)• NASA Electronic Parts & Packaging Program (NASA/GSFC)• NASA Extreme Environment Electronics (Ga Tech prime)• CREME Monte Carlo (NASA MSFC/RHESE)• Aging of Electronics (U.S. Navy DTO/Lockheed-Martin)• U.S. Air Force Minuteman Technology Readiness• BAE SEU-Hardened SRAMs (BAE prime)• SEE Charge Collection Signatures at 90nm (and below) (ANT/IBM prime)• Virtual Irradiation Simulator Development (Air Force/AEDC/PKP)• Integrated Multi-scale Modeling of Molecular Computing Devices (DOE)• Substrate Charge Collection Studies (MEMC)• CFDRC TCAD Tool Development (DTRA SBIR and NASA STTR)• Lynguent Compact Model Development (DTRA SBIR)• SEU Analysis (Medtronic)• GaN HEMT/amplifier simulation (Lockheed Martin)• Radiation Effects on Emerging Electronic Materials and Devices (AFOSR/MURI)• Design for Reliability Initiative for Future Technologies (AFOSR/MURI through
UCSB)• DTRA Basis Research Efforts (three 6-1 grants)
Can we use high-performance computing to analyze radiation effects?
VAnderbilt Multi-Processor Integrated Research Engine (VAMPIRE)• Beowulf cluster consisting of
>1500 processors• Heterogeneous processors
(Pentiums, Opterons, PowerPCs)
Simulation Capabilities
Defect ModelsVASP (DFT code)
Energy Deposition
MRED (Geant4)
MCNPX
Process:FLOOPS (Synopsys)
Device:Dessis (ISE/Synopsys)CFD-ACE+ (CFDRC)FLOODS (U of FL)
Circuit: SPECTRE (Cadence)HSPICE (Synopsys)ELDO (Mentor)
IC Layout & VerificationCadenceSynopsys
Compact Model Parameter Extraction:Cadence Pro+ (Cadence)Aurora (Synopsys) ISE Extract (ISE)
Process Design Kit Development and Enhancement
BEC
DS
G
Technology Characterization: TCAD Simulations Radiation Enabled
Behavioral/Degraded Models
Design, Simulation, and Topology
Hardening Layout Hardening Techniques
Final Radiation Hardened Design
RH - PDK
Radiation Test Data
Model Development and Calibration
Custom Test Chip Design
Physically Based Simulation of Radiation Events
63-MeV proton incident on a SiGe HBT Iso-charge surfaces following a nuclear reaction
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Motion of an ion thru Si<110>
0.08-0.080
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Radiation Effects on Emerging Electronic Materials and Devices: Motivation
More changes in IC technology and materials in past five years than previous forty years
• SiGe, SOI, strained Si, alternative dielectrics, new metallization systems, ultra-small devices…
Future space and defense systems require identification and understanding of radiation effects to develop hardening approaches for advanced technologies
• Changes in device geometry and materials affect energy deposition, charge collection, circuit upset, parametric degradation…
New MaterialsDevice Structure
Device Response Circuit Response
IC Design
Energy Deposition
Defect Models
Si1-xGex Si1-xGex
Technical Approach
Experimental analysis of radiation effects in emerging technologies through partnerships with semiconductor manufacturers
Identification of critical radiation effects mechanisms and challenges through first-principles modeling
Simulation of new radiation-effects mechanisms using custom Monte-Carlo energy deposition codes, device simulation tools, and high performance computing
Radiation Effects in Emerging Electronic Materials and Devices:
Results
Radiation Response of New Materials
Single Events in New Technologies Localized Radiation Damage• RADSAFE—First multi-scale Monte Carlo single-event/rate-
prediction tool• Passivation/metallization found to dominate SEE response in
some hardened technologies• Excellent agreement with on-orbit data; conventional rate-
prediction methods underestimate rate by orders of magnitude
• Incorporation of new materials dramatically impacts radiation response
• HfO2-based dielectrics and emerging high-k materials tested; HfSiON is very promising
• Substrate engineering (strained Si, Si orientations, Si/SiGe, SOI) offers possibility for single-event hardening
• New device technologies strongly impact single-event response and TID leakage current
• SiGe HBTs, strained Si CMOS, ultra-small bulk CMOS exhibit complicated charge collection mechanisms
• Floating-body SOI found to exhibit high radiation-induced off-state leakage due to tunneling
Impact of New Device Structures
• First-principles evidence of micro-melting in small devices
• Displacement damage found to depend on substrate doping type
• Monte-Carlo simulation tool for non-ionizing energy loss developed
Predict error rate
Radiation Environment Models
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Possible PathState 100
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CombinationalSE Hit
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Radiation Transport Models
•Device Single Event Effects
•Circuit Single Event Effects
System Single Event Effects
Advanced Radiation Effects AnalysisAutomated Connection Between Models
Accelerator-Based Experiments
Summary
Vanderbilt has the largest university-based program focused on radiation effects in electronics.
Comprehensive approach from basic particle interactions to large-scale circuit and system performance.
Collaboration with multiple organizations.
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