Reaction–Diffusion Cellular Automata Framework-based Understanding of Radiation-induced Effects from Alpha-particles on the Performances of Microprocessors/FPGAs/Other Electronic Devices using Higher Order Logic (HOL) System and CAVA Library in the R&D of Semiconductor Industry Kumar Nirmal Tej1,2,3,*, Pinto Michelle Ayres de C.4, Shmavonyan Gagik5 1Current Member, Ante Inst, UTD, Dallas, TX, USA 2Independent Consultant, Nanotechnology & Informatics 3Collaborator, ICST, UNESP, Sorocaba, SP, Brazil 4Researcher/Collaborator, ICST, UNESP, Sorocaba, SP, Brazil 5Professor, Semiconductor Division, Department of Physics, SEUA, Yerevan, Armenia *Corresponding author email id: hmfg2014@gmail.com
Abstract We observe these days that aggressive and innovative scaling continues to push semiconductor technology into smaller feature sizes; various design robustness concerns continue to arise at the nanoscale. For example, many materials used in electronics naturally radiate alpha particles, with lead solder being the major problem. Some hi-tech companies are experimenting with lead-free solder, but a host of other materials used in chip making, such as silica moulds and the phosphoric acid used for etching, are also natural alpha-emitters, hence the challenge arises as we know that reliable computing requires processors which include some mechanisms or some means of detecting faults or reducing the rate of soft errors. Technology involving microprocessors/FPGAs (Field Programmable Gate Arrays) and others marches on regardless of the challenges, paving the way for better computing architectures and applications. It is in this context that the authors came up with the idea of suggesting high-order logic (HOL)-cellular automata (CA) (R–D) approach-based computational and informatics framework to probe the technical challenges further, applicable to the semiconductor industry. This is one of the pioneering papers to present the promising application of ‘HOL, R–D and CA’ to investigate possible solutions. CA-based concepts and tools can simulate, verify or test a wide variety of real-world systems. Hardware verification was handicapped for a long time by the absence of a really good high-level design error models. Top Keywords Alpha-particles, Radiation/microprocessors/FPGA/cellular-automata (CA)/algorithms/R–D mechanisms/HOL. Top |