Experimental studies of single-event effects induced by heavy ions

This paper presents the results of ground-based heavy ion test of single-event effect (SEE) vulnerability on microcircuits used in space. We observed the dependence of upset cross-sections on the incident angle of ions in Intel 8086 CPU. SEU cross-sections of various SRAMs did not depend on the stored pattern, but 0 --> 1 and 1 --> 0 transitions were completely different for different manufacturer products. Some SEE protection methods were verified in conditions of ground simulation experiments. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.