Skip to main content
Log in

Low power and high write speed SEU tolerant SRAM data cell design

  • Article
  • Published:
Science China Technological Sciences Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

As feature size scales down, reliability issues like single event upset (SEU) have become serious for circuit and system designers, especially for those who work on memory and latch designs. In this paper, an improved SEU tolerant data cell design based on the Quatro-10T cell is proposed. The introduced cell enhances the capability of SEU tolerance by weakening the key transistors in the feedback loop to block the effects of transient fault. Simulation results show that our proposed design achieves obvious higher resilience to SEU and better performance on speed and power dissipation at the expense of an increased area. The proposed cell is a fully SEU immune design with an amount of critical charge at least 7 times more than the Quatro-10T cell and has the lowest Power Delay Product. It shows that our design is very suitable in high-performance circuit and system design.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. International technology roadmap for semiconductors. http://www.itrs.net/. July 2010

  2. Rockett L R. Designing CMOS data cells for space systems. Microelectron J, 2004, 35: 953–967

    Article  Google Scholar 

  3. Tang D, Li Y H, Zhang G H, et al. Single event upset sensitivity of 45 nm FDSOI and SOI FinFET SRAM. Sci China Tech Sci, 2013, 56: 780–785

    Article  Google Scholar 

  4. Omaña M, Rossi D, Metra C. Latch susceptibility to transient faults and new hardening approach. IEEE T Comput, 2007, 56: 1255–1268

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. Nan H, Choi K. Low cost and highly reliable hardened latch design for nanoscale CMOS technology. Microelectron Reliab, 2012, 52: 1209–1214

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. Huang P C, Chen S M, Liang Z F, et al. Mirror image: Newfangled cell-level layout technique for single-event transient mitigation. Chin Sci Bull, 2014, 59: 2850–2858

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. Qin J R, Li D W, Chen S M. A novel layout for single event upset mitigation in advanced CMOS SRAM cells. Sci China Tech Sci, 2013, 56: 143–147

    Article  Google Scholar 

  8. Ochoa A, Axness C L, Weaver H T, et al. A proposed new structure for SEU immunity in SRAM employing drain resistance. IEEE Electr Device L, 1987, 8: 537–539

    Article  Google Scholar 

  9. Shiyanovskii Y, Wolff F, Papachristou C. SRAM cell design protected from SEU upsets. In: 14th IEEE International On-Line Testing Symposium, Catalunya, Spain, 2008. 169–170

    Google Scholar 

  10. Whitaker S, Canaris J, Liu K. SEU hardened memory cells for a CCSDS Reed-Solomon encoder. IEEE T Nucl Sci, 1991, 38: 1471–1477

    Article  Google Scholar 

  11. Zhang G, Shao J, Liang F, et al. A novel single event upset hardened CMOS SRAM cell. IEICE Electronics Express, 2012, 9: 140–145

    Article  Google Scholar 

  12. Jahinuzzaman S M, Rennie D J, Sachdev M. A soft error tolerant 10T SRAM bit-cell with differential read capability. IEEE T Nucl Sci, 2009, 56: 3768–3773

    Article  Google Scholar 

  13. Rockett L R. An SEU-hardened CMOS data latch design. IEEE T Nucl Sci, 1988, 35: 1682–1687

    Article  Google Scholar 

  14. Sarkar S, Adak A, Singh V, et al. SEU tolerant SRAM cell. In: IEEE 12th International Symposium on Quality Electronic Design (ISQED), Santa Clara, CA USA, 2011. 1–6

    Google Scholar 

  15. Shayan M, Singh V, Singh A D, et al. SEU tolerant robust memory cell design. In: IEEE 18th International On-Line Testing Symposium, 2012. 13–18

    Google Scholar 

  16. Calin T, Nicolaidis M, Velazco R. Upset hardened memory design for submicron CMOS technology. IEEE T Nucl Sci, 1996, 43: 2874–2878

    Article  Google Scholar 

  17. D’Alessio M, Ottavi M, Lombardi F. Design of a nanometric CMOS memory cell for hardening to a single event with a multiple node upset. IEEE T Device Mater Reliab, 2014, 14: 127–132

    Article  Google Scholar 

  18. Qin J R, Chen S M, Liu B W, et al. Research on single event transient pulse quenching effect in 90 nm CMOS technology. Sci China Tech Sci, 2011, 54: 3064–3069

    Article  Google Scholar 

  19. Geng C, Liu J, Zhang Z G, et al. Monte Carlo simulation based on Geant4 of single event upset induced by heavy ions. Sci China-Phys Mech Astron, 2013, 56: 1120–1125

    Article  Google Scholar 

  20. Geng C, Xi K, Liu J, et al. Simulation of the characteristics of low-energy proton induced single event upset. Sci China-Phys Mech Astron 2014, 57: 1902–1906

    Article  Google Scholar 

  21. Garg R, Li P, Khatri S P. Modeling dynamic stability of SRAMs in the presence of single event upsets (SEUs). In: IEEE International Symposium on Circuits and Systems, Seattle, Washington, USA, 2008. 1788–1791

    Google Scholar 

  22. Garg R, Jayakumar N, Khatri S P, et al. Circuit-level design approaches for radiation-hard digital electronics. IEEE T Vlsi Syst, 2009, 17: 781–792

    Article  Google Scholar 

  23. Wey I, Yang Y S, Wu B C, et al. A low power-delay-product and robust Isolated-DICE based SEU-tolerant latch circuit design. Microelectron J, 2014, 45: 1–13

    Article  Google Scholar 

  24. Rockett L R. Simulated SEU hardened scaled CMOS SRAM cell design using gated resistors. IEEE T Nucl Sci, 1992, 39:1532–1541

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to GuoHe Zhang.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Wang, L., Zhang, G., Zeng, Y. et al. Low power and high write speed SEU tolerant SRAM data cell design. Sci. China Technol. Sci. 58, 1983–1988 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11431-015-5929-6

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11431-015-5929-6

Keywords

Navigation