Monte Carlo Simulation of Neutrons, Protons, Ions and Alpha Particles Involved in Soft Errors in Advanced Memories

*Due to cosmic rays, electronic devices such as SRAM may undergo some dysfunctions such as single event upsets also called Soft errors. A crucial issue for aerospace applications is to be able to predict the Soft Error rate of a given device in a given environment. In this work, we present a predictive tool which deals with protons and heavy ions for space applications and with neutrons for atmospheric applications. Moreover, it deals with alpha particles which can be emitted naturally within the device, during nuclear decay of polluting uranium, thorium and their daughter nuclei. Natural alpha emitters from materials, such as hafnium, are also considered. Thus, the novelty of the code is its ability to address the issues of space, avionic and ground level applications. The Monte Carlo approach allows calculating simply the single event upset and multiple bit upset cross sections as well as the associated Soft Error rates. To state whether an error occurs or not, the code is able to consider well known criterions such as the critical energy deposited in a sensitive volume or the ambipolar diffusion model.