Cosmic Ray Interactions with Boron: A Possible Source of Soft Errors

Neutron interactions with 10B produce pairs of heavily ionizing particles (4He and 7Li) that can contribute to soft errors in integrated circuits. The effect from boron exceeds that from cosmic rays incident on silicon nuclei if the boron concentration exceeds 1020/cc, which is often present in p-type Si and which is exceeded in common packaging sealing glasses. Intercomparison of cosmic ray-induced and spontaneous sources is provided.