Evaluation of Single Event Effect on RK3588 Neural Processing Unit Using Spallation Neutron Irradiation and Software Fault Injection

This research investigates atmospheric neutron-induced single event effects (SEEs) on advanced artificial intelligence (AI) chips during natural environment operation. The RK3588 neural processing unit (NPU) is the evaluated target chip, and its SEE is assessed through a combination of irradiation testing and software fault injection. During the irradiation test, the chip was exposed to a spectrum neutron at the China Spallation Neutron Source. Upon reaching a cumulative fluence of 8.25 × 109 n·cm2, a total of 14,018 soft errors were detected, of which 99.97% manifested as variations in target recognition accuracy and network inference latency. Among these variations, both detrimental effects (reduced target recognition accuracy or prolonged network inference time) and beneficial effects (enhanced target recognition accuracy or shortened network inference time) caused by single event effects were observed. In addition, atmospheric neutron single event effects were found to cause NPU operation suspension and system crashes. Based on the irradiation test results, failure predictions for neural processing units in real-world environments were estimated, and mitigation recommendations were proposed. Furthermore, software fault injections were employed to conduct in-depth analysis of detected soft errors during irradiation testing. This research provides support and references for the reliable application of artificial intelligence chips in natural environments.