Single Event Effects in 14-Nm Intel Microprocessors

Abstract

Heavy ion and proton test results on multiple commercial 14-nm Intel microprocessors are presented. Testing was performed using commercial motherboards with a mixture of commercial and custom software. Machine check errors, system crashes, graphical glitches, and isolated events with temporary or permanent loss of functionality referred to as hard failures were observed during testing. The hard failures observed while testing the Intel 5th Generation Broadwell 14-nm devices were caused by a companion 32-nm planar bulk CMOS die in the multi-chip package.