Bit-Error and Soft-Error Resilient 7T/14T SRAM with 150-nm FD-SOI Process

This paper presents measurement results of bit error rate (BER) and soft error rate (SER) improvement on 150-nm FD-SOI 7T/14T (7-transistor/14-transistor) SRAM test chips. The reliability of the 7T/14T SRAM can be dynamically changed by a control signal depending on an operating condition and application. The 14T dependable mode allocates one bit in a 14T cell and improves the BER in a read operation and SER in a retention state, simultaneously. We investigate its error rate mitigating mechanisms using Synopsys TCAD simulator. In our measurements, the minimum operating voltage was improved by 100 mV, the alpha-induced SER was suppressed by 80.0%, and the neutron-induced SER was decreased by 34.4% in the 14T dependable mode over the 7T normal mode. key words: SRAM, single-event upset (SEU), bit error rate (BER), soft error rate (SER), neutron particle, alpha particle