ANITA — a new neutron facility for accelerated SEE testing at the svedberg laboratory

ANITA (Atmospheric-like Neutrons from thIck TArget), a new neutron facility for accelerated testing of electronic components and systems for neutron-induced single event effects, has been installed at The Svedberg Laboratory in Uppsala, Sweden. Results of characterization measurements are reported.

I. Introduction

Neutron-induced single-event effects (SEE) cause one of the major reliability concerns in semiconductor electronic components and systems [1], [2]. Accelerated testing for neutron-induced SEE can utilize either spallation neutron sources [3]–[5], or fields of monoenergetic neutrons [6], [7], or quasi-monoenergetic neutron (QMN) facilities, see e.g. [8], [9]. An attractive feature of spallation neutron sources is that they produce so-called “white” spectra of neutrons, which resemble the spectrum of neutrons in the Earth's atmosphere and at the terrestrial level. This resemblance allows one easily to deduce the failure-in-time (FIT) rate for a device under test (DUT).