The Effect of Concrete Shielding on Cosmic Ray Induced Soft Fails in Electronic Systems

Abstract

Calculations are made of the sea level flux of cosmic rays after attenuation by various layers of concrete. These attenuated fluxes are then used to calculate the rate at which they induce burst of electronic charge in silicon. It is shown that for bursts up to 3 X 105 electrons the burst rate increases dramatically up to thicknesses of 10 m of concrete shielding. The soft fail rate in an 8-Mbyte semiconductor memory is calculated for various layers of concrete shielding. Copyright © 1981 by The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc.