Using the LANSCE irradiation facility to predict the number of fatal soft errors in one of the world's fastest supercomputers

Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) is home to the Los Alamos Neutron Science Center (LANSCE). LANSCE is a unique facility because its neutron spectrum closely mimics the neutron spectrum at terrestrial and aircraft altitudes, but is many times more intense. Thus, LANSCE provides an ideal setting for accelerated testing of semiconductor and other devices that are susceptible to cosmic ray induced neutrons. Many industrial companies use LANSCE to estimate device susceptibility to cosmic ray induced neutrons, and it has also been used to test parts from one of LANL's supercomputers, the ASC (Advanced Simulation and Computing Program) Q. This paper discusses our use of the LANSCE facility to study components in Q including a comparison with failure data from Q.