Integrated Solutions for EDA / TCAD / RadHard

Physics-Based Simulation of Radiation Effects in IC

Unique Technologies

Fully-physical simulation framework for radiation effects

TCAD simulator able to handle over 1 million mesh nodes
From space radiation environment to SEU rate, end-to-end solution
Estimating small probability with statistical analysis

Framework and Modules

3D modeling
Particle simulation
TCAD simulation
Integrative framework

Process
Rule

Gds2mesh
Gseat/VisualParticle
Genius/VisualTCAD
RunSEU

Mask Layout
Gds2mesh

3D TCAD Model
Gseat/
VisualParticle

Particle Sample

TCAD
Simulation

TCAD
Simulation

...

Particle
Simulation

...

Particle
Simulation

Particle
Simulation

Genius/
VisualTCAD

TCAD
Simulation
RunSEU

Statistical
Analysis
Flipped

Not flipping

Comparison of Commercial SEU Solutions

Cogenda
Fully-Physical

Solutions

Other
TCAD-based

Other
Spice-based

Number of TCAD simulated transistors

1 30

16

Number of grid nodes in TCAD model

< 500

< 50

Number of spice-simulated transistors

> 1,000

> 1,000

>1,000,000

Parasitic BJT transistor effects

Mask layout and isolation effects

Particle transport physics

Randomness of particle transport

Radiation source

Ion/Proton/Neutron/E
lectron/Photon

Ion

Time to analyze the SEU of a single SRAM

cell (8-core parallel computation)

~ 30 mins

~ 30 mins

< 1 min

Suitable application

SEE, Dose rate, TID

SEE, Dose rate

TID

Number of events analyzed

> 10,000

< 100

> 10,000

(w/ statistical enhance)

Unique Fast-TCAD Solver, Fastest in Industry

100
10

NAND2

Inverter
SRAM

1000

nMOS

simulation time (min.)

MUX2
Latch

10000

D-FF

100000

Traditional
Power (Traditional)
Fast

Power (Fast)
Other TCAD tools

0.1
10

100

1000

number of mesh nodes (x1000)

Cogenda data points:
Transient of two switches (rise/fall),
Other TCAD data points:
1: 6T SRAM, 45K mesh nodes,
transient
2: power device , 500K mesh nodes, steady-state
3: 6T SRAM, 1million mesh nodes, steady-state

2 CPUs (Xeon 5620)

4 CPUs yr2008 (old)
? CPUs
4 CPUs yr2011 (latest)

Trad.: Fully-implicit method

Fast: Half-implicit method
Presented at 2012 SISPAD

Fully-Physical Simulation Every Details Matter

Realistic 3D Models

Substrate

Metal interconnects

1 active cell, 2 dummy cell, well contacts

NSREC 2012

Geant4-based particle simulation

Fully-integrated with Gds2mesh /

TCAD modules

Complete physics list

Suitable for all radiation sources

Heavy-ion (left)

Proton/Neutron (right)

Electron

Photon (X-ray -ray)

Biased cross-section for rare

reactions

Comparison with Experimental results

Simulated SEU cross-sections agree with accelerator experimental results
Energy
(MeV)

LET
(MeV/cm2/mg)

C6+

80

1.73

F8+

104

4.33

Si10+

126

9.6

Cl11+

138

13.6

Cu13+

161

33.4

12
19
28
35
63

H.X. Guo et al, Atomic energy science and

technology, v44, pp. 1498-1504, 2010.

10
HM62V8100 SRAM SEU cross-section
1
/bit (cm2)

Ion

0.1
Experiment
Simulation

0.01
0

10

15

20

25

LET (MeV/cm2/mg)

30

35

40

Statistical Sampling the Time Saver

Subset 0:

Subset 1:

SRAM SEU problems

Most particles can not possibly
cause SRAM to flip, no need for
TCAD simulation.
Statistical importance sampling,
fewer number of expensive
simulations.
Autonomous algorithms to find

Sensitive volumes

Critical charge
Example (left)

180nm SRAM cell

Subset 0: uniform sampling

Subset 1: importance sampling

Less variance
Flipped
Not flipped, color indicates
affinity to flip

Presented at RADECS 2012

System Requirement
- Redhat Enterprise Linux RHEL 5.x/6.x, 64-bit
- Ubuntu Linux 12.04 LTS, 64-bit
- Microsoft Windows XP/7/2008, 64bit

Cogenda Pte Ltd

100 Tras Street #16-01 Amara Corporate Tower
Singapore 079027
Email: contact@cogenda.com
Web: http://www.cogenda.com

- Intel x86_64 or compatible

- 32 GB RAM
- 1 TB Harddisk

328 22 306
215123
512-67900636
contact@cogenda.com
http://cn.cogenda.com