Joaquim E. R. Costa - INPE, Brazil
The Brazilian Ionosphere as seen by EMBRACE program

Abstract:
Two important anomalies over Brazil are the focus of studies and monitoring of the Brazilian Regional Warning Center for Space Weather (named EMBRACE). EMBRACE is a program of the Space Weather Division of the National Institute for Space Research (INPE). The Equatorial Ionization Anomaly (EIA) that crosses almost the whole area of Brazilian territory, and the South America Magnetic Anomaly (SAMA) are important singularities being considered by the EMBRACE, where most studies and tools are developed to measure, understand and predict ionospheric irregularities caused by such a complex regional space weather. We will show some regional aspects of space weather research that are not best observed from space and rather locally as irregularity in ionospheric plasma, for example, ionospheric plasma bubbles or radiation belt over SAMA region. The program has a strong focus on the dynamics of the ionosphere and is participating in the missions COSMIC 2, SPORT, and EQUARS to monitor and research such irregularities. Radio wave propagations through and reflected by the ionosphere are disturbed by these irregularities, such as GNSS positioning services used by high- precision agriculture, autonomous flight of planes, UAVs and drones, georeferenced services for mining and oil drilling, telecommunications and radio services amateurs.

Short Bio:
PhD in Astrophysics by the National Institute for Space Research – INPE. Senior researcher at Astrophysics Division/INPE. He has experience in Astronomy, with emphasis on Heliophysics, acting on the following topics: Modeling of solar flares with diagnoses in various wavelengths in complex inhomogeneous environments, analysis in radio of the quiescent solar atmosphere, predictive modelling in space weather, instrumentation in radio astronomy and modelling of magnetic cataclysmic variables. He is currently Head of Space Weather Division that runs the EMBRACE-program (Brazilian Studies and Monitoring Space Weather) of the National Institute for Space Research.

Matteo Cecchetto - CERN, European Organization for Nuclear Research, Switzerland
Accelerator Radiation Environment and Neutron Effects in Electronics

Abstract:
The talk introduces the radiation environment in the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) accelerator at CERN and the radiation-induced effects in electronics, presenting several comparisons with the atmospheric environment. Indeed, a large quantity of electronics, mainly Commercial Off The Shelf (COTS) components, is needed for the operation of the accelerator and suffers from Single Event Effects (SEEs) and cumulative damage due to Total Ionising Dose (TID) and Total Non-Ionizing Dose (TNID). The talk shows how the radiation levels are measured and simulated in critical areas, focusing on thermal and higher energy neutrons, which are the main contributors to SEEs. In addition, the SEEs induced by neutrons between 0.1 and 10 MeV are compared to the overall error rate due to the full neutron spectra, showing that in some cases they can induce more failures than more energetic neutrons. The related Radiation hardness Assurance (RHA) implications are presented.

Short Bio:
Matteo Cecchetto received the Master degree in Electronic Engineering from the University of Padova (Italy) in 2017, and performed the PhD at CERN (Switzerland) obtaining the degree from the University of Montpellier (France) in 2021. He is currently Senior Fellow at CERN, working in the Radiation to Electronics (R2E) project. His main activities focus on the experimental and simulation study of neutron-induced Single Event Effects in accelerator and atmospheric environments, with a deepening on the effect of thermal and intermediate-energy neutrons, and related implications on the qualification approach for electronics.

Slawosz Uznanski - CERN, European Organization for Nuclear Research, Switzerland
Qualification of Electronic Components for a Radiation Environment: When Standards do not exist - High Energy Physics

Abstract:
The radiation environment inside particle accelerators varies significantly depending on location: in certain places it can be comparable to avionic or LEO orbit applications while in others it can differ significantly. In addition, the failure criticality also varies significantly. Thus, the testing standards used for space are not directly applicable. This lecture will describe a practical approach to component qualification, system tests and the radiation hardness assurance used to design electronics at CERN. The talk will provide examples of two different design cases: 1) an LHC accelerator control system and 2) a highly redundant LHC detector system.

Short Bio:
Slawosz Uznanski is a radiation effects engineer and a project leader at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN). Slawosz’ is leader of the electronics design for power converter controls for the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) and other CERN’s accelerators. Slawosz received his M.Sc. from the Technical University of Lodz, Poland in 2008 (with honors) and his Ph.D. from the University of Aix-Marseille, France in 2011 (with honors). His prior experience includes; Evaluating European space technologies for the European Commission in 2019, Radiation Effects Engineer at STMicroelectronics (2008-2011) focusing on radiation-hardened digital 65nm CMOS technology for space applications, and R&D Engineer at Xilinx developing power-driven synthesis algorithms. He has co-authored a book on single event effect modelling and written over 50 articles in IEEE journals and conferences.

Ricardo Reis and Leonardo Brendler - UFRGS, Brazil
Circuit Level Design Methods to Mitigate Soft Errors

Abstract:
The mitigation of soft errors (SE) should be considered in all design abstraction levels, from a high-level to the physical one. This talk will discuss the efficiency of mitigation techniques to decrease the soft error susceptibility on the circuit/physical design levels considering a 7-nm FinFET technology. Simulations were performed at nominal and near-threshold operations. The transistor reordering putting the serial transistors as far as possible to the output is not favorable to mitigate the soft error susceptibility. For example, the AOI21 cell is 20% more robust to soft errors if the standard version is kept in the design. The gains of this technique are more significant for lower LETs. The logic multi-level design improves over 45% on average the SET results for the cells evaluated. The LETth considering the work-function fluctuation (WFF) impact is smaller than the LETth at ideal conditions. That is, due to WFF, a smaller amount of energy transferred by the particle is required to cause a disturbance in the circuit. When decoupling cells are adopted in the design, the soft error susceptibility decreases around 24.5%, 23.7%, and 11.4% for LETs equal to 15, 20, and 58MeV.cm2.mg-1, respectively, in our test cases. Although the design of FinFET gates connecting decoupling cells in the output is better to improve the SE susceptibility, larger SET pulses were verified mainly under higher LET levels. The results show that a design using a sleep transistor or Schmitt Trigger is very promising for soft error mitigation. The three logic cells evaluated become free of faults (no events seen at gate output) using these techniques, independently of the LET, input vector, or core voltage employed in the design.

Short Bio:
Ricardo Reis received a Bachelor degree in Electrical Engineering from Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS), Porto Alegre, Brazil, in 1978, and a Ph.D. degree in Microelectronics from the National Polytechnic Institute of Grenoble (INPG), France, in 1983. Doctor Honoris Causa by the University of Montpellier in 2016. He is a full professor at the Informatics Institute of Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul. His main research includes physical design automation, design methodologies, fault tolerant systems and microelectronics education. He has more than 700 publications including books, journals and conference proceedings. He was vice-president of IFIP (International Federation for Information Processing) and he was also president of the Brazilian Computer Society (two terms) and vice-president of the Brazilian Microelectronics Society. He is an active member of CASS and he received the 2015 IEEE CASS Meritorious Service Award. He was vice-president of CASS for two terms (2008/2011). He is the founder of the Rio Grande do Sul CAS Chapter, which got the World CASS Chapter of The Year Award 2011, 2012, and 2018, and R9 Chapter of The Year 2013, 2014, 2016, 2017 and 2020. He is a founder of several conferences like SBCCI and LASCAS, the CASS Flagship Conference in Region 9. He was the General or Program Chair of several conferences like IEEE ISVLSI, SBCCI, IFIP VLSI-SoC, ICECS, PATMOS. Ricardo was the Chair of the IFIP/IEEE VLSI-SoC Steering Committee, vice-chair of the IFIP WG10.5 and he is Chair of IFIP TC10. He also started with the EMicro, an annually microelectronics school in South Brazil. In 2002 he received the Researcher of the Year Award in the state of Rio Grande do Sul. He is a founding member of the SBC (Brazilian Computer Society) and also founding member of SBMicro (Brazilian Microelectronics Society). He was member of CASS DLP Program (2014/2015), and he has done more than 70 invited talks in conferences. Member of IEEE CASS BoG and IEEE CEDA BoG. IFIP Fellow Award.

Leonardo H. Brendler received the B.S. degree in Computer Engineering and the M.S degree in Microelectronics from the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre, Brazil, in 2018 and 2020, respectively. He is currently pursuing a PhD degree in Microelectronics in an international joint supervision between the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, and the Université de Bordeaux, France, in partnership with the IMS Laboratory. His research interests include digital design, reliability on nanotechnologies, fault tolerant circuits and radiation effects on electronic systems.

Rodrigo Possamai Bastos - Univ. Grenoble Alpes, TIMA Laboratory, France
Radiation effects in tiny machine learning systems and attitude estimation processing modules for autonomous things

Abstract:
In a new era of autonomous things, AI computing solutions are being developed also for the edge of applications, close to sensors, in order to minimize data transfer to/from the cloud and reduce related risks in case of unavailable connections. On the other hand, edge computing is normally resource-constrained in terms of latency, power, and memory, demanding the development of tiny and also reliable machine learning (ML) systems. This talk will focus on discussing and comparing the effectiveness of three prominent ML algorithms for tiny ML computing systems in tolerating neutron-induced soft errors. Radiation test-based results suggest that the case-study ML algorithms retain a certain intrinsic level of effectiveness in tolerating neutron effects even thought without any mitigation technique. Notably, random forest algorithm has performed no misclassification during different radiation testing campaigns carried out with 14-MeV and thermal neutron beams. Furthermore, this talk will also discuss neutron radiation effects on the attitude estimation (AE) processing typically embedded in inertial navigation systems (INS) and modern autonomous things. Findings highlight the importance of radiation-induced critical failures that are able to upset INS embedding AE processing modules. Radiation tests have been conducted running three strategies for computing different advanced AE algorithms on a case-study processing module exposed to 14-MeV neutron and thermal neutron radiation. Results and analysis suggest that the contribution of radiation-induced soft errors to be mitigated on the AE processing modules is essentially related to single event functional interrupts that can lead inertial navigation to critical failures.

Short Bio:
Rodrigo POSSAMAI BASTOS is an associate professor of computer engineering since 2012 at Univ. Grenoble Alpes (UGA), TIMA Laboratory. His research interests include reliability aspects of computing systems and integrated circuits, from hardware/software design to test, considering effects of environmental radiation particles. Currently he is the supervisor of two PhD thesis and he was the co-supervisor of other 6 PhD students from 2014 to 2020. Rodrigo has obtained his HDR in January 2018, having a sabbatical year exclusively for research ("Délégation CNRS") in 2019/2020. Springer Nature has published his first book in 2019, and he is also an author/co-author of more that 80 related scientific articles/communications (21 in international journals). Rodrigo is currently the general coordinator of the international exchange project BRAFITEC/BRAFISAT in France (2019-2022) and the international research project MultiRad (France, UK, Spain, Brazil), granted by Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region (2020-2023). In addition, he is/was the coordinator of 10 other international/national research projects funding PhD/master students/researchers (2014-2023). Rodrigo is also the coordinator of a training in which 5 information-technology engineers teach >1300 students (university's first semester) computer and Internet basics.

Paolo Rech - UFRGS, Brazil, and Politécnico di Torino, Italy
Are Self-Driving Vehicles Reliable? Evaluation and Mitigation of Errors in Automotive Applications

Abstract:
The new trend in the automotive market is self-driving system. To be implemented, a self-driving platform needs to be able to analyze a huge amount of images and signals in real time. This is achieved thanks to Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) executed on Graphics Processing Units (GPUs) or dedicated accelerators. The Tesla self-driving system, for instance, is powered by NVIDIA embedded GPUs executing CNNs-based object-detection. GPUs were originally designed for multimedia applications, for which reliability is not an issue. Their architecture is then optimized to increase performances, not reliability. In the talk we will discuss the reliability of GPUs and evaluate if they are compliant with the strict ISO 26262, which is the standard that define the reliability constraints for automotive applications. The talk will focus on the reliability of object-detection algorithm and convolution neutral networks (including YOLO, Faster RCNN, and ResNet).We will understand how to identify radiation-induced errors in GPUs and distinguish between tolerable errors and critical errors. After a brief description of radiation effects at physical level we will show the real impact of neutrons in GPUs by presenting accelerated neutron beam results that correspond to more than 150,000 years of natural exposure. Our data demonstrates that most of radiation-induced errors in GPUs can be tolerated, even in safety-critical applications. We will show how to replicate the causes of critical errors through architectural-level and instruction-level fault-injection. By hardening only critical error sources, we will be able to increase the reliability of the application without unnecessary overhead.

Short Bio:
Paolo Rech received his master and Ph.D. degrees from Padova University, Padova, Italy, in 2006 and 2009, respectively. He was then a Post Doc at LIRMM in Montpellier, France. Since 2012 Paolo is an associate professor at UFRGS in Brazil. He is the 2019 Rosen Scholar Fellow at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, he was awarded the 2020 Marie Curie Fellowship from the European Commission and he received the 2020 impact in society award from the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, UK. His main research interests include the evaluation and mitigation of radiation-induced effects in large-scale HPC centers and in autonomous vehicles for automotive applications and space explorations.

Enxia Zhang - Vanderbilt University, USA
Total Ionizing Dose Effects on 3D devices

Abstract:
3D ICs are ideal for applications that benefit from more transistors in a given footprint, and a natural choice for applications already pushing the limits of a single die at the most advanced node. Vertical stacking provides faster interconnects and has a smaller footprint than multiple packaged chips. Stacking heterogeneous dies provides flexibility, since different manufacturing processes and nodes can be intermixed. Existing chips can be reused without being redesigned for incorporation into a single die, providing cost and risk reduction. Applying 3D sequential integration (3DSI) techniques on fully depleted silicon-on-insulator (FDSOI) enables an active device to be stacked on another device in a sequential way to extend capabilities of traditional planar SOI technology. Its high alignment accuracy depends primarily on precision lithography and stepper performance, making it possible to fabricate stacked FD-SOI structures. However, this integration may come at the cost of additional thermal budget for the top layer processing, which can potentially affect the device radiation response. Stacked layers may induce electrical coupling between devices of multiply stacked layers, which can potentially complicate radiation responses of these devices and circuits. Here we discuss total ionizing dose (TID) effects on 3D integrational FDSOI including effects of thermal budget associated with 3D fabrication sequence, and charge trapping and electrical coupling between devices of multiply stacked layers.

Short Bio:
Enxia’s relevant research experience includes: 1) Performing fundamental research on radiation response and reliability mechanisms for microelectronic devices built in advanced semiconductor technologies, e.g. FDSOI, 3D FDSOI, 14 nm, 22 nm, 32 nm, 45 nm and other related silicon bulk/SOI new technologies. 2) Leading high-speed/RF packaging and testing and characterization activities, developing new packaging and bonding methods for RF applications. This helps to develop the research on new application of time-dependent reflectometry and radiation effects on RF devices. 3) Leading/improving experimental research on total ionizing dose effects and single event effects and charge collection in advanced devices, and performing single event effects characterization and analysis on a wide variety of devices, such as 2 D devices based on graphene, black phosphorus, etc. Enxia has ~300 journal papers and over 100 conference publications as first author and/or co-author with other researchers. Most of the papers are published in leading archival journal publications in the field (see list below) and leading conferences (e. g., IEEE NSREC, RADECS). These publications have been cited more than 3500 times, with h-index of 31 and i10-index of 118 (Google Scholar).

Fernanda Kastensmidt - UFRGS, Brazil
Analyzing the Reliability of Neural Networks in Programmable SoC Devices

Abstract:
State-of-the-art programmable logic devices, known as Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) devices, include not only the programmable logic fabric but also hard-core parts, such as general-purpose processors, dedicated processing blocks, interfaces to various peripherals, on-chip bus structures, and analog blocks. These new devices are commonly called All Programmable System-on-Chip (APSoC) devices. APSoC devices have large amount of computational resources available which make them very attractive to artificial intelligence applications embedded in vehicles. Applications based on image recognition, route prediction and classification are some example of real-time applications that can use neural networks embedded in SRAM-based FPGAs. Single Event Effects (SEE) are radiation-induced soft errors caused by ionized particles originated from the space environment or from neutron interaction with matter at ground level. A Single Event Upset (SEU) occurs when an SEE provokes a bit-flip in a memory element. SRAM-based Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGA) or APSoC are particularly susceptible to SEUs due to the millions of SRAM cells used to configure all the synthesized logic. Therefore, safety-critical systems making use of neural networks synthesized on APSoC must be characterized for SEE susceptibility and must have fault-tolerant mechanisms to protect not only the data but also the circuitry. There is a huge solution space to explore in neural networks into SoC: accuracy, reliability, time, power and area. The talk will explore some of these solutions by given case-study examples.

Short Bio:
Fernanda Kastensmidt holds a degree in Electrical Engineering from the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (1997), a master's degree in Computer Science from the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (1999) and a doctorate in Computer Science from the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (2003). He is currently Associate Professor at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul and Coordinator of the Graduate Program in Microelectronics (PGMICRO). She has experience in Microelectronics and Computer Engineering, focusing on Hardware, acting on the following subjects: radiation fault protection techniques, fault tolerant systems design, programmable architecture, FPGA, systems qualification and fault integrated circuits and fault modeling. She is the author of the book Fault Tolerance Techniques for SRAM-based FPGAs published in 2006 by Springer and co-author of 3 more scientific books. Participated in the NanoSat-BR1 satellite payload project which was launched in June 2014 and is currently in the NanoSat-BR2 project where part of the payload is responsible for analyzing the effects of SAA on Integrated Circuits manufactured using nanometer technology.

Poster Session 1
Session Chairs: Adria Oliveira (Cobham Gaisler, Sweden/UFRGS, Brazil) and Ygor Aguiar (CERN, Switzerland)

Raspberry Pi Accelerated Neutron Radiation Testing
Charles Corley
University of Texas

Nuclear reactions: Neutron-induced radiation effects in electronic devices
Saulo Alberton, Nilberto Heder Medina, Nemitala Added, Vitor Aguiar, Marcilei Aparecida Guazzelli, Alexis Vilas Boas, Odair Gonçalez and Claudio Federico
University of São Paulo Centro Universitário FEI, Instituto de Estudos Avançados

Radiation testing of high-resolution Sun sensors for satellite application
Guan Yu Huang, Yung-Jhe Yan, Tse Yu Cheng, Chang Hsun Liu, Yu Siou Liu, Tung Yun Hsieh, Chen Yu Chan and Mang Ou Yang
NYCU, NSPO

SEU Evaluation of Hardened-by-Replication Software in RISCV Soft Processor
Corrado De Sio, Sarah Azimi, Andrea Portaluri and Luca Sterpone
Politecnico di Torino

Radiation vulnerability and hardening of FPGA-based ANN accelerator
Junning Fan
UNSW Sydney

An Automated Framework for Early Soft Error Assessment, Identification, and Mitigation
Jonas Gava, Ricardo Reis and Luciano Ost
Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Loughborough University

Laurent Artola - Onera, France
Challenges of the soft error evaluation of ultra-deep submicron library cells in naturel radiation environments

Abstract:
Dr. Laurent ARTOLA from ONERA will present an overview of the challenge in the evaluation of soft error in ultra-deep submicron (UDSM) libraries for space and avionic applications. He will first introduce the natural radiation constrain radiation, from space down to the ground in the prism of the evolution of technological roadmap. Next, he will present the challenges of the modeling the occurrence of punctual effects, called Single Event Effect (SEE) and the developed simulation tools. Finally, in the last session, Laurent will present several case applications of soft error evaluations of library cells in various deep submicron technologies, from Bulk, SOI and FinFET technologies

Short Bio:
Laurent Artola (MSEE 2007, Ph.D. EE 2011) was research engineer at ONERA since 2012 before to become head of radiation effects team in 2018. His researches are focus on radiations effects in devices and integrated circuits, modeling and characterization of Single Event Effects and total ionization dose. He received the best ONERA physics PhD award and the best PhD presentation award. He is regularly involved in radiations R&D projects for space applications. He has served the radiation effects and microelectronics reliability communities as reviewers, session chairman, and member of the award comity for the IEEE Nuclear and Space Radiation Effects Conference (NSREC) and Space RAdiation Effects in Components and Systems (RADECS) european conference. Laurent serves as reviewers in more than 15 journals. Since 2021, Laurent is associate editor in Elsevier Microelectronics Reliability journal and I serves as guest editor for several special issues in MDPI journals (Aerospace and Electronics). He has authored and co-authored more than 50 papers, including one best paper award at RADECS conference paper.

Luca Sterpone - Poltecnico di Torino, Italy
Rad-Ray: A 3-D Python Tool to Analyze Heavy Ions-Induced Effects on VLSI Cells"

Abstract:
This presentation will be a tutorial on the usage of the Rad-Ray tool. A python tool developed by Politecnico di Torino to simulate the heavy ions effects on the layout of VLSI cells. A complete set of usage steps will be provided together with the demonstration of applicability to CMOS 65nm and 45nm and FinFET 7nm layout technologies. The tool is open-access and free to use for interested researcher. The presentation will be based on the TNS paper: L. Sterpone, F. Luoni, S. Azimi and B. Du, "A 3-D Simulation-Based Approach to Analyze Heavy Ions-Induced SET on Digital Circuits," in IEEE Transactions on Nuclear Science, vol. 67, no. 9, pp. 2034-2041, Sept. 2020

Short Bio:
Luca Sterpone is Full Professor of the CAD and Reliability group at the DAUIN department of Politecnico di Torino. He has been appointed as Vice-head of the Control and Computer Engineering Department (DAUIN) for the academic period 2019 - 2023. The research activity of Luca Sterpone focuses on computer engineering and it covers several multidisciplinary topics such as reconfigurable computing, computer-aided design algorithms, fault tolerance, radiation effects and reliability. He has an active collaboration with several companies: NVIDIA, Xilinx, Microchip, European Space Agency (ESA), Boeing Satellite Systems, Thales Alenia Space and EADS.

Nadia Rezzak - Microchip Technology Inc., USA
FPGAs basics and radiation testing

Abstract:
FPGA design flow, architecture and configuration will be discussed, radiation testing and characterization of FPGAs in different radiation environments, including Total Ionizing Dose (TID) and Single Event Effect (SEE) in proton, neutron and heavy ion environment will be covered.”

Short Bio:
Career: 10+ years of experience in radiation effects and reliability, Manages the radiation effects team and leads the radiation effects solutions architecture, development and validation of Microchip Technology commercial and Radiation Tolerant FPGAs, 30+ conference presentations and journal publications in industry leading conferences (NSREC, RADECS, HEART…) and journals (IEEE TNS, Microelectronics Reliability…) Education: 2007 – Master’s from Polytech Montpellier (France) in EE, 2012 – Master’s and Ph.D. from Vanderbilt University in EE, with a focus on radiation effects.

Tiago Balen - UFRGS, Brazil
Testing Analog and Mixed-Signal Circuits under Radiation: failure mechanisms, test methods and mitigation strategies

Abstract:
Even the most powerful supercomputer needs at least one interface to the physical world to be useful. Analog-to-Digital Converters, operational amplifiers and voltage references, for instance, are common blocks of control, instrumentation and communication systems, including those adopted in safety-critical and space applications. Therefore, as important as the correct functioning of computing units, is the reliability of analog-to-digital and digital-to-analog system interfaces. In this talk, results of several radiation experiments aimed at analog and mixed-signal circuits are presented. Test methodologies, failure mechanisms and mitigation strategies are addressed, considering Total Ionizing Dose and Heavy Ions irradiations. Post irradiation analysis and SPICE simulation as a tool to explain or confirm observed results are also discussed.

Short Bio:
Tiago Roberto Balen received his Electrical Engineering degree, MSc and PhD degrees from Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS), Porto Alegre, Brazil, in 2004, 2006, and 2010, respectively. His research interests include analog and mixed-signal test, built-in-self test, programmable analog devices, fault tolerant circuits and radiation effects on electronic systems. He has published more than 70 papers on these topics in important conferences and journals, receiving two “Best Paper Awards” for his contributions. Currently, he is associate professor at the Electrical Engineering department and head of the graduate program on Microelectronics (PGMICRO) of the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS).

Poster Session 2
Session Chairs: Alexandra Lackmann Zimpeck (UCPel, Brazil) and Rafael Budim Schvittz (FURG, Brazil)

Impact of Internal Nodes and Transistor Reordering on Complex Gates Susceptibility to SET
Bruno Ferraz, Henrique Kessler and Vinícius Camargo
Federal University of Pelotas

Effects of Transistor Sizing in FinFET Circuits
Rafael Neves de Mello Oliveira, Bernardo Borges Sandoval, Rafael Schvittz and Cristina Meinhardt
Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande

A Procedure for Estimating the Radiation Susceptibility of Combinational Circuits
Clayton Farias and Paulo F. Butzen
Universidade Federal do Rio Grande, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul

A relationship between the Entropies of a transistor network and transient faults
Elias de Almeida Ramos and Ricardo Reis
Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul

Impact of Aging on the sensitivity of 14nm FinFET SRAM cells to Single-Event Upset
Allan Constante, Fabian Vargas, Víctor Champac, Letícia Poehls and Tiago Balen
Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Catholic University - PUCRS, National Institute for Astrophysics, Optics and Electronics – INAOE, RWTH Aachen

Luciano Ost - Loughborough University, England
Challenges in mitigating soft errors in embedded deep inference networks: The importance of lightweight mitigation techniques.

Abstract:
To enable the deployment of deep neural networks (DNNs) in resource-constrained edge devices, software engineers employ libraries and application programming interfaces (APIs) to fine-tuning their memory footprint, performance and accuracy. With the growing adoption of DNNs in safety-critical embedded systems (e.g., autonomous vehicles) increases the demand for safe and reliable models. To reach levels of reliability comparable to those required by high safety standards, it is imperative to supply electronic computing systems with appropriate mechanisms to reduce their vulnerability to radiation-induced soft errors. This talk will discuss the key challenges, benefits, and impediments of deploying deep inference networks in resource-constraint IoT devices. In this talk, I will also review the most common approaches used to mitigate soft errors in electronic computing systems and present a framework that supports fast and early soft error assessment, diagnosis, and susceptibility reduction evaluation by applying mitigation techniques. Case studies covering different mitigation techniques, libraries/APIs and deep neural network characteristics will be used to demonstrate the benefits of our approach.

Short Bio:
Luciano Ost is currently a Faculty Member with Loughborough University’s Wolfson School - UK. He received his Ph.D. degree in Computer Science from PUCRS, Brazil in 2010. During his Ph.D., Dr Ost worked as an invited researcher at the Microelectronic Systems Institute of the Technische Universitaet Darmstadt (from 2007 to 2008) and at the University of York (October 2009). After the completion of his doctorate, he worked as a research assistant (2 years) and then as an assistant professor (2 years) at the University of Montpellier II in France. He has authored more than 90 papers and his research is devoted to advancing hardware and software architectures to improve performance, security, and reliability of life-critical and multiprocessing embedded systems.

Jorge Johanny Sáenz Noval - Microelectronics Institute at Sevilla, Spain
Development of a 180 nm Radiation Hardened Standard Cell Library for Space Applications

Abstract:
The mitigation of radiation effects on integrated circuits can be performed in three ways: Manufacturing Process Level, Architectural Level (redundancy), and Layout Level. This work presents the development of a radiation-hardened standard cell library designed and manufactured in XFAB 180 nm technology. The library uses circuit-level redundancy, guard rings, and closed geometry techniques (ELT—Enclosed Layout Transistor) in standard CMOS technologies. An ASIC designed with this library is currently operative, making part of a nanosatellite's payload launched this year (NanosatC-Br2).

Short Bio:
Jorge received his Master's degree in Microelectronics from the University of São Paulo, Brazil, and his bachelor's degree in Electronic Engineering from Universidad Industrial de Santander, Colombia. From 2010 to 2015, he worked in Santa Maria Design House, where he led the design team of radiation-hardened circuits developing in-house circuits for space applications. Currently, he is doing a Ph.D. in the Instituto de Microelectrónica de Sevilla, Spain, in advanced CMOS sensors for Electron Microscopy. His research interest includes radiation-hardened circuits, CMOS image sensors, ultra-low-power circuits, ADC converters, and analog-mixed signal verification.

Jorge Tonfat - Space Research Institute of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, Austria
FPGA Circuits in Space Missions

Abstract:
FPGAs are extensively used in space missions. Many sub-units of a satellite include FPGAs in their design. This talk presents the details of FPGA circuits for space missions. It includes the circuit design and verification flow and some radiation mitigation techniques at circuit and architectural level typically used.In particular, the presentation focusses on the Austrian Space Research Institute (OEAW/IWF) contribution to the ESA PLATO mission.

Short Bio:
Jorge Tonfat is a post-doctoral researcher at the Space Research Institute of the Austrian Academy of Sciences (IWF/OEAW). He works on PLATO and SMILE missions of the European Space Agency (ESA). He received the electronic engineer degree from Pontificia Universidad Catolica del Perú in 2008, the master and PhD degree in Microelectronics from UFRGS, Brazil in 2011 and 2015, respectively. His research interests include soft error mitigation techniques and radiation effects on FPGAs.

Nilberto Heder Medina - Universidade de São Paulo, Brazil
Neutron Effects in Silicon Electronic Components

Abstract:
In order to a better understanding of silicon-based electronic devices under the influence of fast neutrons, neutron-induced SEEs in semiconductor devices were studied in detail using the Deuterium-Tritium Neutron Generator of the Laboratório de Radiação Ionizante (LRI), of the Instituto de Estudos Avançados (IEAv), São José dos Campos, Brazil. The SEE occurrence probabilities for 14 MeV neutrons were estimated using the Monte-Carlo fusion-evaporation code PACE4 and analytical approximations for the active volume in semiconductor devices. Energy spectra from interaction of 14.1 MeV neutrons with a silicon surface barrier detector, silicon transistors (VDMOSFET and TrenchFET) and a gallium nitride-on-silicon transistor (HEMT) were observed using charge spectroscopy techniques. On the other hand, the NUMEN project - Nuclear Matrix Elements in Neutrinoless Double Beta Decay – was recently proposed, in which nuclear reactions of double charge exchange (DCE) are investigated at the LNS/INFN (Laboratori Nazionali del Sud, Catania, Italy). This project has important implication on neutrino physics and possible modifications and extensions of the Standard Model of elementary particles. The expected level of radiation in the NUMEN experiment imposes severe limitations on the average lifetime of the electronic devices. During the experiments it is expected that the electronic devices are exposed to about 10^5 neutrons/cm2/s according to FLUKA simulations. In this talk it will be shown also the investigation of the reliability of the National Instruments (NI) System On Module (SOM) under the influence of thermal, epithermal and fast neutrons. The tests were performed using a neutron flux produced by the Instituto de Pesquisas Energéticas e Nucleares (IPEN) 4.5 MW Nuclear Research Reactor. The results show the NI-SOM is robust to neutron radiation for the proposed applications in the NUMEN project.

Short Bio:
Nilberto H. Medina graduated in Physics (1984), received his master´s degree (1988) and PhD (1992) from Universidade de São Paulo (USP), Brazil. Postdoctoral fellowship (1993-1995) at the Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (INFN), Padua section, Italy. Now he is Associate Professor in Universidade de São Paulo and addressed four doctoral theses and six master´s dissertations. Former director of the USP Nuclear Physics Open Laboratory. His main research topics are Nuclear Structure via gamma-ray spectroscopy, Nuclear Instrumentation and Radiation Effects in Electronic Devices.

José Azambuja - UFRGS, Brazil
Low-level Software-based Hardening Techniques for Configurable GPU Architectures

Abstract:
The high processing power of Graphics Processing Units (GPUs) makes them attractive for safety-critical applications, where transient effects are a major concern. To operate in such conditions, resilience must be enforced without compromising performance. Configurable softcore GPUs are a recent technology that allows detailed reliability assessment to bring directions to the design of reliable GPU applications. This talk will address the reliability of configurable GPUs, such as FlexGripPlus and FGPU, and evaluate the impact of fault tolerance techniques based on software, hardware, and the combination of both (hybrid). We will present the results of several fault injection campaigns, both irradiated and simulated, for different GPU and processor architectures. Finally, we will discuss how to take advantage of the novel GPU architectural solutions and fault tolerance techniques to improve application reliability without unnecessary overheads.

Short Bio:
Jose Rodrigo Azambuja received the MSc degree in computer sciences from the Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS), Brazil, and the Ph.D. degree in computer sciences and electrical engineering from UFRGS and the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Germany. He is an Associate Professor at UFRGS since 2017, the Chair of the IEEE CASS-RS Chapter, and a member of the City Counsel for Science, Technology, and Innovation. His current research interests include reconfigurable computing, hardening techniques, and radiation effects on components and systems.