Skip to main content

SEU Tolerant Robust Latch Design

  • Conference paper
Book cover Progress in VLSI Design and Test

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNTCS,volume 7373))

  • 2359 Accesses

Abstract

With the scaling of technology node and voltage levels, VLSI circuits are facing the challenge of tolerance to soft errors normally caused by alpha particle or neutron hits. These radiation strikes, resulting into bit upsets referred to as single-event upsets (SEUs), may be catastrophic in few sensitive applications and severely undermine the quality and reliability in other applications. In this paper we propose two novel SEU tolerant latch designs RHL-A and RHL-B. Our latch designs are area efficient in comparison with the earlier proposals. Simulation results show that the proposed latch designs is extremely robust as it does not flip even for a transient pulse with 58 times the Qcrit of a standard latch cell. Compared to standard latch, RHL-A uses 40 percent more transistors and is 65 percent slower, whereas RHL-B uses 60 percent more transistors but is 65 percent faster.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 39.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 54.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

References

  1. Naeimi, H., DeHon, A.: Fault Secure Encoder and Decoder for NanoMemory Applications. IEEE Transactions on Very Large Scale Integration (VLSI) Systems 17(4) (April 2009)

    Google Scholar 

  2. Sasaki, Y., Namba, K., Ito, H.: Soft Error Masking Circuit and Latch Using Schmitt Trigger Circuit. In: Proceedings of 21st IEEE International Symposium on Defect and Fault Tolerance in VLSI Systems, pp. 327–335 (October 2006)

    Google Scholar 

  3. Lin, S., Yang, H., Luo, R.: A New Family of Sequential Elements With Built-in Soft Error Tolerance for Dual-VDD Systems. IEEE Trans. On VLSI Systems 16(10) (October 2008)

    Google Scholar 

  4. Sootkaneung, W., Saluja, K.K.: Sizing Techniques for Improving Soft Error Immunity in Digital Circuits. In: Proceedings of ISCAS 2010 (2010)

    Google Scholar 

  5. Zhou, Q., Choudhury, M.R., Mohanram, K.: Tunable Transient Filters for Soft Error Rate Reduction in Combinational Circuits. In: European Test Symposium 2008 (2008)

    Google Scholar 

  6. Mukherjee, S.: Architecture Design for Soft Errors. Morgan Kaufmann publishers (2008)

    Google Scholar 

  7. Kumar, J., Tahoori, M.B.: Use of pass transistor logic to minimize the impact of soft errors in combinational circuits. In: Workshop on System Effects of Logic Soft Errors (2005)

    Google Scholar 

  8. Cha, H., Patel, J.: Latch design for transient pulse tolerance. In: International Conference in Computer Design, pp. 385–388 (October 1994)

    Google Scholar 

  9. Ochoa, Axness, Weaver, H.: A proposed new structure for SEU immunity in SRAM employing drain resistance. IEEE Electron Device Letters EDL-8(11) (November 1987)

    Google Scholar 

  10. Rockett, L.R.: A SEU hardened CMOS latch design. IEEE Transactions on Nuclear Science 35(6) (December 1988)

    Google Scholar 

  11. Nicolaidis, M., Perez, R., Alexandrescu, D.: Low-cost Highly-robust Hardened Cells Using Blocking Feedback Transistors. In: 26th IEEE VLSI Test Symposium (2008)

    Google Scholar 

  12. Lin, S., Kim, Y.-B., Lombardi, F.: A Novel Design Technique for Soft Error Hardening of Nanoscale CMOS Memory. In: IEEE International Midwest Symposium on Circuits and Systems (2009)

    Google Scholar 

  13. Sudipta, Anubhav, Singh, V., Saluja, K., Fujita, M.: SEU tolerant SRAM cell ISQED (2011)

    Google Scholar 

  14. Garg, R., Jayakumar, N., Khatri, S.P., Choi, G.S.: Circuit-Level Design Approaches for Radiation-Hard Digital Electronics. IEEE Trans. on Vary Large Scale Integration (VLSI) Systems 17(6) (June 2009)

    Google Scholar 

  15. Liang, W., Suge, Y., Yuanfu, Z.: Low-Overhead SEU-Tolerant Latches. In: Proc. International Conference on Microwave and Millimeter Wave Technology, pp. 1–4 (2007)

    Google Scholar 

  16. Xiaoxuan, S., Li, N., Farwell, W.D.: Tunable SEU-Tolerant Latch. IEEE Trans. on Nuclear Science 57, 3787–3794 (2010)

    Google Scholar 

  17. Messenger, G.C.: Collection of charge on junction nodes from ion tracks. IEEE Trans. Nucl. Sci. NS-29(6), 2024–2031 (1982)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  18. Omana, M., Rossi, Metra: Novel High Speed Robust Latch. In: IEEE International Symposium on Defect and Fault Tolerance in VLSI Systems (2009)

    Google Scholar 

  19. Nagpal, C., Garg, R., Khatri, S.P.: A delay-efficient radiation-hard digital design approach using CWSP elements. In: Proc. Des. Autom. Test Eur., pp. 354–359 (March 2008)

    Google Scholar 

  20. Namba, K., Ikeda, T., Ito, H.: Construction of SEU tolerant flipflops allowing enhanced scan delay fault testing. IEEE Trans. Very Large Scale Integr (VLSI) Syst. 18(9), 1265–1276 (2010)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  21. Zhou, Q., Mohanram, K.: Gate sizing to radiation harden combinational logic. IEEE Trans. Comput.-Aided Design Integr. Circuits Syst. 25(1), 155–166 (2006)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  22. Weste, N., Harris, D.: CMOS Vlsi Design, 4th edn. Pearson Education

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2012 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

About this paper

Cite this paper

Shayan, M., Singh, V., Singh, A.D., Fujita, M. (2012). SEU Tolerant Robust Latch Design. In: Rahaman, H., Chattopadhyay, S., Chattopadhyay, S. (eds) Progress in VLSI Design and Test. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 7373. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-31494-0_26

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-31494-0_26

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-642-31493-3

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-642-31494-0

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics