2013 Volume E96.C Issue 4 Pages 511-517
According to the process scaling, radiation-hard devices are becoming sensitive to soft errors caused by Multiple Cell Upset (MCUs). In this paper, the parasitic bipolar effects are utilized to suppress MCUs of the radiation-hard dual-modular flip-flops. Device simulations reveal that a simultaneous flip of redundant latches is suppressed by storing opposite values instead of storing the same value due to its asymmetrical structure. The state of latches becomes a specific value after a particle hit due to the bipolar effects. Spallation neutron irradiation proves that MCUs are effectively suppressed in the D-FF arrays in which adjacent two latches in different FFs store opposite values. The redundant latch structure storing the opposite values is robust to the simultaneous flip.