A Method to Design 5-Bit Burst Error Correction Code against the Multiple Bit Upset (MBU) in Memories

Abstract

Space applications face severe challenges from soft errors caused by cosmic rays. Soft errors can change the storage state of memories used in electronic system, leading to system failure. To avoid the system corruption, error correction codes (ECCs) as the general mitigation strategy in system level are utilized to eliminate the soft error influence. As the feature size goes down, more memory cells are integrated in the energy deposited range of radiation particles and MBU becomes the main error patterns. In this paper, we propose a new method to design 5-bit burst error correction code against more complex burst error. To achieve that, a technique to design a code with unequal correction ability and a customized interleaving plan combined with the proposed code is presented. The experiment result implies that this method is efficient for MBUs mitigation and a potential option for system designers.