Layout-based reliability analysis of openMSP430 register file under external radiations

• Published in: 2023 International Conference on Microelectronics (ICM) pp. 294 - 297
• Main Authors: Bansal, Vivek, Mohamed, Otmane Ait, Ghaffari, Fakhreddine
• Format: Conference Proceeding
• Language: English
• Published: IEEE 17-12-2023
• Subjects: Benchmark testing; Circuit faults; criticality; Layout; Logic gates; Microelectronics; register-file; Registers; Reliability engineering; soft-error; transient
• ISSN: 2159-1679
• DOI: 10.1109/ICM60448.2023.10378890

This paper presents an application specific-approach to estimate the soft error failure rate of a circuit due to the effect of external radiations. The proposed approach utilizes the Satisfiability modulo theory (SMT) to evaluate the impact of soft errors on the microprocessor's register file. We investigate the vulnerable factors at the gate level using the layout information of the circuit. A case study is conducted by performing an analysis on the register file of the openMSP430 core for benchmark programs. Exhaustive analyses focused on single and multiple event transients were performed. These analyses have been used to measure the vulnerability factor of different registers, identifying their application-specific criticality.