Impact of Supply Voltage and Frequency on the Soft Error Rate of Logic Circuits

Alpha particle irradiations of 28-nm combinational logic and flip-flop circuits under different supply voltage and frequency operating conditions are investigated. Results indicate that while the supply voltage has a strong impact on the alpha particle soft error rate of flip-flops, the combinational logic error rate is relatively unaffected by supply voltage variation. Simulations are used to explain the results and highlight the differences between low-LET alpha particle irradiation and heavy-ion irradiation as far as voltage dependence of the logic soft error rate is concerned. Moreover, frequency has a much stronger impact on the logic soft error rate as compared to the flip-flop soft error rate. As a result, the frequency at which soft errors from combinational logic circuits will exceed errors from flip-flops decreases as the voltage increases. The impact of these observations is discussed in the context of soft-error mitigation strategies.