IEC 60749-44:2016 establishes a procedure for measuring the single event effects (SEEs) on high density integrated circuit semiconductor devices including data retention capability of semiconductor devices with memory when subjected to atmospheric neutron radiation produced by cosmic rays. The single event effects sensitivity is measured while the device is irradiated in a neutron beam of known flux. This test method can be applied to any type of integrated circuit.
NOTE 1 - Semiconductor devices under high voltage stress can be subject to single event effects including SEB, single event burnout and SEGR single event gate rupture, for this subject which is not covered in this document, please refer to IEC 62396-4.
NOTE 2 - In addition to the high energy neutrons some devices can have a soft error rate due to low energy (<1 eV) thermal neutrons. For this subject which is not covered in this document, please refer to IEC 62396-5.