An Analytical Approach to Calculate Soft Error Rate Induced by Atmospheric Neutrons

In the atmosphere, it is generally understood that neutrons are main contributor to soft error rate (SER) in electronic devices. These particles indeed able trigger nuclear reactions sensitive regions of devices, leading secondary ions may ionize matter sufficiently upset a memory cell or induce transient signal, known as errors. For reliability purposes, crucial be estimate SER associated with given technology, which typically characterized by its volume and threshold linear energy transfer (LET). As an alternative usual Monte Carlo methods, this work we present analytical model for prediction, where separate radiation–matter interaction from geometry considerations (sensitive volume). By doing so, show can expressed sum two contributions calculated any LET size. We compare our proposed approach existing simulations literature, obtaining very good agreement despite approximations, thus validating approach. additional result, that, future down-sized technologies more radiation effects, contribution 1–10 MeV range expected decrease.