Evaluating the SEE Sensitivity of a 45 nm SOI Multi-Core Processor Due to 14 MeV Neutrons

The aim of this work is to evaluate the SEE sensitivity of a multi-core processor having implemented ECC and parity in their cache memories. Two different application scenarios are studied. The first one configures the multi-core in Asymmetric Multi-Processing mode running a memory-bound application, whereas the second one uses the Symmetric Multi-Processing mode running a CPU-bound application. The experiments were validated through radiation ground testing performed with 14 MeV neutrons on the Freescale P2041 multi-core manufactured in 45 nm SOI technology. A deep analysis of the observed errors in cache memories was carried-out in order to reveal vulnerabilities in the cache protection mechanisms. Critical zones like tag addresses were affected during the experiments. In addition, the results show that the sensitivity strongly depends on the application and the multi-processing mode used.