Soft errors induced by natural radiation at ground level in floating gate flash memories

Abstract

This work reports the combined characterization at mountain altitude (on the ASTEP Platform at 2552 m) and at sea-level of more than ~50 Gbit of 90 nm NOR flash memories subjected to natural radiation (atmospheric neutrons). This wafer-level experiment evidences a limited impact of the terrestrial radiation at ground level on the memory SER evaluated without ECC. Experimental values are compared to estimations obtained from Monte Carlo simulation using the TIARA-G4 code combined with a physical model for charge loss in such floating-gate devices.