System and methods for analyzing and estimating susceptibility of circuits to radiation-induced single-event-effects

Abstract

Systems and methods for semiconductor design evaluation. IC layout information of a circuit design is received, and the circuit design is decomposed into smaller circuit pieces. Each circuit piece has IC layout information and a netlist. For each circuit piece, a set of strike models is selected based on the layout information and the net-list of the circuit piece and received radiation environment information. Each strike model has circuit components with voltage values corresponding to a respective particle strike. For each selected strike model of a circuit piece: a radiation susceptibility metric is determined by comparing functional results of simulation of the of the strike model with functional results of simulation of the circuit piece. For each circuit piece, a radiation susceptibility metric is determined based on the radiation susceptibility metrics generated for each selected strike model of the circuit piece.

What is claimed is: 
     
         1 . A semiconductor design evaluation hardware system, comprising:
 a first hardware compute accelerator constructed to:   store a plurality of sets of particle strike models, wherein each particle strike model has charge voltage circuit components with radiation susceptibility charge voltage values corresponding to a respective particle strike of a radiation environment identified by radiation environment information received for a placed and routed circuit design;   select a set of particle strike models based on IC (integrated circuit) layout information and the received radiation environment information;   generate first functional results by using the particle strike models of the selected set;   generate second functional results by using at least a portion of the placed and routed circuit design; and   generate a radiation susceptibility metric for the placed and routed circuit design by comparing the first functional results with the second functional results.   
     
     
         2 . A method comprising:
 storing a plurality of sets of particle strike models, wherein each particle strike model has charge voltage circuit components with radiation susceptibility charge voltage values corresponding to a respective particle strike of a radiation environment identified by radiation environment information received for a placed and routed circuit design;   selecting a set of particle strike models based on IC (integrated circuit) layout information and the received radiation environment information;   generating first functional results by using the particle strike models of the selected set;   generating second functional results by using at least a portion of the placed and routed circuit design; and   generating a radiation susceptibility metric for the placed and routed circuit design by comparing the first functional results with the second functional results.