The Effects of Alpha Particles on the Sense Amplifier in Memory Devices

알파 입자가 기억소자의 SENSE AMP에 미치는 영향

When alpha particles are incident into the substrate, we have calculated the advanced current caused by collecting charges as a function of time, the energy of alpha particle, and the carrier concentration of the substrate. Employing SPICE, we have compared two circuits of which one has dummy cell and another has dummy line instead of dummy cell, and both are connected to the bit line node including sense amplifier and cell within the memory device. From the numerical analysis, (it may be conjectured that)the smaller energy of alpha particle and the lower concentration of the substrate, the more possibility of misoperation due to alpha particles. It may be also found that the effects of alpha particle are substantially reduced in the circuit without dummy cell.