RHLP-18T: A Radiation-Hardened 18T SRAM with Enhanced Read Stability and Low Power Consumption

Electronic equipment in space is constantly exposed to high-energy particles, which can induce Single Event Upsets (SEUs) in memory components, threatening system reliability. To address this critical challenge, we propose RHLP-18T, a radiation-hardened 18-transistor (18T) Static Random-Access Memory (SRAM) cell designed to enhance robustness against radiation-induced faults. The proposed cell integrates circuit-level Radiation-Hardened-by-Design (RHBD) techniques to mitigate both SEUs and multi-node upsets. Comprehensive simulations were conducted using 90 nm CMOS technology, benchmarking RHLP-18T against nine existing RHBD cells (RHBD14T, HPHS12T, NRHC14T, QCCS12T, RHMC12T, RHWC12T, SEA14T, SIMR-18T, and SERSC16T). Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed RHLP-18T cell exhibits superior SEU tolerance, achieving a Read Static Noise Margin (RSNM) over three times higher than the next best design. Moreover, the proposed cell achieves the lowest hold power consumption among all evaluated cells. These improvements result in the highest Figure of Merit (FOM), indicating that RHLP-18T provides an optimal trade-off between robustness and overall performance for operation in radiation-exposed environments.