Systems and methods for particle detection and error correction in integrated circuits

Abstract

The present application provides systems and methods for particle detection and error correction in integrated circuits. An integrated circuit for detecting and correcting error events associated with atomic particles includes an error detection circuit connected to a monitoring circuit. The error detection circuitry may include particle sensing circuitry (eg, diode circuitry) embedded below the substrate surface of the integrated circuit and particle verification circuitry (eg, sense amplifiers) coupled to the particle sensing circuitry through conductive vias. Particle sensing circuits detect and collect stray charges generated by atomic particles passing through the integrated circuit. The particle verification circuit may be based on an output signal representative of the particle energy of the atomic particle generated by stray charges collected by the particle sensing circuit. The monitoring circuit can identify particle energy based on the output signal and subsequently generate an error correction signal that activates error correction operations in the integrated circuit.

Description

[0001] Related Application Cross Reference [0002] This application claims priority to US Patent Application No. 14 / 859,097, filed September 18, 2015, which is hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety. technical field Background technique [0003] A single event upset (SEU) is a charge state or transient voltage pulse at a sensitive node in an integrated circuit such as a processor. SEU occurs due to high-energy particles bombarding the processor's silicon substrate. The sequential storage elements determine the architectural state of the processor, such as random access memory (RAM) arrays, register files, and architectural state registers, since SEUs can be faulty if the SEU causes the state of the sequential storage elements to flip. SEU can cause the affected integrated circuit to malfunction. As integrated circuit feature sizes decrease, integrated circuits tend to become more susceptible to SEU, which is one of the more important trends in integrated circuit...

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Problems solved by technology

This causes the EDCRC and scrubbing circuits to run constantly on the IC, which can lead to higher power consumption and voltage source noise

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