Improved capabilities for proton and neutron irradiations at TRIUMF

Improvements have been made at TRIUMF to permit higher proton intensities of up to 10/sup 10/ cm/sup -2/s/sup -1/ over the energy range 20-500 MeV. This improved capability enables the study of displacement damage effects that require higher fluence irradiations. In addition, a high energy neutron irradiation capability has been developed for terrestrial cosmic ray soft error rate (SER) characterization of integrated circuits. The neutron beam characteristics of this facility are similar to those currently available at the Los Alamos National Laboratory WNR test facility. SER data measured on several SRAMs using the TRIUMF neutron beam are in good agreement with the results obtained on the same devices using the WNR facility. The TRIUMF neutron beam also contains thermal neutrons that can be easily removed by a sheet of cadmium. The ability to choose whether thermal neurons are present is a useful attribute not possible at the WNR.