Difference of soft error rates in SOI SRAM induced by various high energy ion species

Soft error rates in silicon-on-insulator (SOI) static random access memories (SRAMs) with a technology node of 90 nm have been investigated by beryllium and carbon ion probes. The soft error rates induced by beryllium and carbon probes started to increase with probe energies of 5.0 and 8.5 MeV, in which probes slightly penetrated the over-layer, and were saturated with energies at and above 7.0 and 9.0 MeV, in which the generated charge in the SOI body was more than the critical charge. The soft error rates in the SOI SRAMs by various ion probes were also compared with the generated charge in the SOI body. The soft error rates induced by hydrogen and helium ion probes were 1–2 orders of magnitude lower than those by beryllium, carbon and oxygen ion probes. The soft error rates depend not only on the generated charge in the SOI body but also on the incident ion species.