Proton Evaluation of Single Event Effects in the NVIDIA GPU Orin SoM: Understanding Radiation Vulnerabilities Beyond the SoC

In this paper, we investigate the single event effects under proton irradiation for the state-of-the-art embedded GPU NVIDIA Jetson Orin NX System-on-Module (SoM). Designed for deployment across safety critical domains and in particularly automotive, this system represents a cutting-edge advancement in high performance embedded computing with functional safety features, which makes it an ideal candidate for use in space systems. Our study evaluates the Single-Event Effects (SEE) manifested within the SoM's central processing unit (CPU), graphics processing unit (GPU), and associated peripherals. Through our analysis, we aim to delineate the origins of Single Event Functional Interrupts (SEFI) occurring at the SoM level. Furthermore, we provide a detailed exposition on the errors observed within the GPU complex, elucidating the requisite conditions for their manifestation. Unlike previous works which treat embedded GPUs under irradiation as black box, we are able to identify the source of SEEs through ARM's RAS subsystem, and observe for the first time in literature GPU SEEs. Our investigation culminates in a comprehensive assessment of the SoM's susceptibility, identifying particularly sensitive components.