Our Users

“Our SEE testing campaign at the HEARTS facility was a great success, thanks in large part to the unique capabilities the facility offers and the awesome team at CERN. Their high-energy lead (Pb) beam allowed us to confidently reach the sensitive volumes of all our devices through complex packaging and shielding configurations.

One of the things that really stood out was the flexibility of the beam setup. The ability to adjust beam energy and use degraders gave us precise control over the LETs we were targeting, which was critical for meeting our test goals. It made the process smoother and more effective than we’ve experienced at many other facilities.

Additionally, the training, arrival, and set-up procedure were very well documented and made the process of testing at a new facility for the first time seamless. Given this, we didn’t have any issues using HEARTS for the first time and achieved similar results to other high-energy heavy ion facilities.

Beyond the technical capabilities, the HEARTS team was knowledgeable, responsive, and easy to work with. Their support helped make a demanding test campaign run efficiently. We’re definitely looking forward to working with them again in the future.”

“Our experience with the IRRAD line at CERN was extremely positive! We successfully tested 3D NAND Flash memories with a very-high energy ion beam in the framework of the HEARTS EU project. Such extremely energetic projectiles are the ideal way to cross the hundreds of layers of 3D integrated devices and they also enabled irradiation at grazing angles, which is not feasible with lower energy particles.

We also had a PIPS diode in the beam line to accurately measure energy deposition events in a standard device already used in several other irradiation facilities across the world.”

“We tested processing units and microcontrollers for the Nyx capsule. In terms of how they benefit our activities, I would say that qualifying these devices was crucial in confirming the defined avionics architecture. The beam type you need to pick depends on the radiation requirements that must be complied with and then the package complexity whether it is convenient to use high energy over low energy.

Flip-chip devices have a very small form factor, so it is easy to build very high-throughput computing systems in a small board with them and save mass and space. To test flip-chips it is ideal to have a few mm penetration because sometimes the package is 0.5 mm of copper and other times you just have chips stacked on top of each other inside the package that you can’t really test anywhere else because you can’t thin them down.

Given the number of flip-chips used in our designs, we have been actively seeking any possible opportunity to test with high-energy ions.”