Radiation Assurance

Radiation Assurance

With more than 30 000 modules in Space in January 2009, and with more than 9 years of Flight Heritage with no Failure, 3D Plus is the largest Space Qualified catalog products and custom System-In-Packages (SiPs) manufacturer in Europe.

3D Plus Radiation Assurance Policy has been set-up for the Radiation Tolerant Stack Products, and it covers all the effects induced on the semiconductor devices by the Space radiation environment. In Space, electronic devices are subject to radiations (electrons, heavy ions, high energy protons,…).
Interactions between these particles and the silicon structure of the 3D Plus stacks induce two types of effects:

Total Ionizing Dose effect (TID)
This is a cumulative, long term destructive effect.
The device tolerance is dependant on die design (die mask revision) and on manufacturing process (Wafer diffusion lot - Batch Code). The device tolerance is expressed in kRad(Si) and can be improved with additional shielding (depending on mission’s radiation profile).

Single Event Effects (SEE)
This is a single event effect that can happen at any time of the mission. The device tolerance is dependant on die design (die mask revision). The Single Event Effects can be distinguished in three main categories:

  • Single Event Latchup (SEL)
    This is a destructive effect.
    The device tolerance expressed in MeV/mg.cm².
  • Single Event Upset (SEU)
    This is a Non destructive effect. The device tolerance is expressed in LET threshold (MeV/mg.cm²) and saturated cross section (cm2/bit). These parameters allow calculating the bit error rate for a given mission profile. SEU effects can be mitigated by appropriate correction algorithm (TMR, EDAC, …)
  • Single Event Functional Interrupt (SEFI)
    This is a Non destructive effect. The device tolerance is expressed in LET threshold (MeV/mg.cm²) and saturated cross section (cm2/device). These parameters allow calculating the Sefi error rate for a given mission profile. SEFI effects can be mitigated by appropriate correction algorithm (TMR, Power cycles,…).

3D Plus Radiation Tolerant Products follow the guidelines of our Radiation Assurance Policy:

Radiation Verification Tests are performed for the space qualification of every new semiconductor device:

  • SEU/SEL are die revision dependant, and the verification tests are performed for every die revision,
  • TID is batch dependant, and the verification test is performed for every batch.

The Radiation Tolerance of the stacks derivates from these radiation verification tests results with the following rules :

  • SEL and TID : the stacks behave the same than the basic semiconductor devices,
  • SEU and SEFI: taking into account the basic devices’ characteristics, the error rate of the stack can be calculated for a given mission profile (the curve cross section vs LET threshold are provided to our customers for making their simulations)

Generic radiation tests reports are available for every catalogue products. Specific Radiation tests can be performed on demand for a specific product batch.

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