Radiation Effects in Electronics

Dear Colleagues,

The miniaturization issued from the progress of integrated circuit manufacturing technologies leads to an increase in the sensitivity to energetic particles present in the environment where the circuit operates. These effects, gathered under the acronym of SEEs (single event effects), have many consequences. These can vary from the modification of the content of one or several memory cells, which is known as SEUs (single event upsets) to the destruction of the circuit, thereby leading to SELs (single event latchups), SEBs (single event burnouts) or SEGRs (single event gate ruptures). One of the consequences of miniaturization is the possibility that a single particle perturbs the content of various adjacent bits, thus leading to faults escaping to traditional fault tolerance strategies, such as ECCs (error correction codes).

This challenge to reliability, in the past strictly considered for aerospace or avionics, must now be taken into account for any application operating in the Earth’s atmosphere, even for those at ground level, for which a fault may have critical consequences. The electronics systems of autonomous and connected vehicles, 5G and RF devices, power devices for electric vehicles, green and reusable energy, and the so-called Internet of Things (IoT) are representative examples of this challenge.

This Special Issue aims at clearly describing these contexts and presenting the solutions that must be adopted to ensure the required reliability and functional safety. Submissions are expected to focus on the theoretical aspects, experimental results issued from tests of advanced integrated circuits, benefits, and weaknesses of existing or new fault tolerance strategies. New ideas proposing disruptive approaches are also welcome.

Topics of interest include but are not limited to the following areas:

• Evidence of weaknesses to radiation effects of very advanced circuits;
• Results of accelerated radiation tests on integrated circuits issued from ultimate technologies;
• Results of real-life experiments performed in the Earth’s atmosphere;
• Fault tolerance techniques at different levels: hardware, software, architecture;
• Radiation effects on autonomous and connected vehicles;
• Radiation effects on power devices for electric vehicles and green and reusable energy;
• Potential impact of radiation effects on the Internet of Things (IoT) era;

We hope this Special Issue works as a roadmap for IC’s manufacturers and designers, developers of hardware systems, and software applications.

Manuscript Submission Information

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• SEEs (single event effects)
• TID (total ionizing dose)
• accelerated radiation tests
• real-life tests
• radiation hardening
• fault tolerance
• ECCs (error correction codes)
• IoT (Internet of Things)
• functional safety
• terrestrial neutron