GUIDELINES FOR PREDICTING SINGLE-EVENT UPSETS IN NEUTRON ENVIRONMENTS

Single-event upsets (SEUs) in aerospace applications may generally be attributed to direct ionization by heavy nuclei in galactic cosmic radiation or to energetic recoils of substrate nuclei interacting with high-energy (E > 10 MeV) protons. In some aerospace applications the radiation environment is dominated by neutrons which are expected to be the principal cause of SEUs. These environments include the atmosphere at aircraft altitudes, in the vicinity of nuclear reactors and other neutron sources, nuclear weapons environments, and within heavily shielded spacecraft. Neutron-induced SEUs have been demonstrated in the laboratory [1,2] and procedures for estimating error rates have been defined [3]. Utilizing our most recent computations of neutron burst generation rates [4,5] we introduce a simple, graphical technique for estimating neutron-induced error rates in various neutron environments.