Effect of natural radiation on electronics: from constraint to prediction

Effects of natural environment of ionizing radiation on electronic device reliability, at ground and atmospheric level, is now a reality. With device down-scaling all the electronic systems are sensitive to this environment.The aim of this article is to give the essential order of magnitudes related to this topic. First, the natural ionizing radiation environment and more specifically the neutron environment is described. Highlights are given to consider the particular case of the reliability of most integrated technologies. Second, interactions between neutrons and device materials are reminded. Then the effects of those interactions on electrical response of SRAM memories, that means upsets, are analyzed. Principles of simulation tools used to predict those upsets are presented. (authors)