Single-Event, Enhanced Single-Event and Dose-Rate Effects with Pulsed Proton Beams

Pulsed proton beams can create various upset effects in memory circuits. The response of the IDT 6116RH static RAM to these effects has been investigated over a range of flux extending from a single-event dominated region to a dose-rate dominated region. A surprisingly large intermediate region has been observed for the first time in which nuclear reactions add to background ionization to produce synergistic upset effects. From the viewpoint of memory reliability, the threshold of this synergistic region appears to be more important than the dose-rate upset threshold. Comparisons to gamma/electron dose-rate and single-event upset measurements are presented, as well as analysis and modelling of the results.