Comparison of Combinational and Sequential Error Rates for a Deep Submicron Process

It has been predicted that upsets due to Single-Event Transients (SETs) in logic circuits will increase significantly with higher operating frequency and technology scaling. For synchronous circuits manufactured at advanced technology nodes, errors due to single-event transients are expected to exceed those due to latch upsets. Experimental results presented in this paper quantify the contribution of logic errors to the total Soft-Error Rate (SER) for test circuits fabricated in a 40 nm bulk CMOS technology. These results can be used to develop guidelines to assist circuit designers adopt effective hardening strategies to reduce the SER, while meeting performance specifications for high speed logic circuits.