Reliability of Modern Microelectronics in Space and Terrestrial Radiation Environments

The objective of this proposal is to perform a series of Single Event Upsets (SEU) characterisations within space weather environments for modern microelectronics i.e. Commercial Off The Shelf SRAM Memories with feature sizes <90 nm which are analogous to devices found in a wide range of systems. Four different boards have been designed and built for positioning within a radiation source beam. A chosen pattern will be written to the SRAMs and then following irradiation the pattern can be compared to determine the number of SEUs which were experienced. These can be compared with results from other radiation sources and the project outcomes should be able to inform the reliability of the chosen technologies to perform critical functions on large scale systems e.g. mobile phone systems or high value assets e.g. avionics, satellites etc.