Single Event Upsets Induced by Direct Ionization from Low-Energy Protons in Floating Gate Cells

摘要

Floating gate cells in advanced NAND Flashmemories, with single-level and multi-level cell architecture, wereexposed to low-energy proton beams. The first experimentalevidence of single event upsets by proton direct ionization infloating gate cells is reported. The dependence of the errorrate versus proton energy is analyzed in a wide energy range.Proton direct ionization events are studied and energy loss inthe overlayers is discussed. The threshold LET for floating gateerrors in multi-level and single-level cell devices is modeled andtechnology scaling trends are analyzed, also discussing the impactof the particle track size.