Michigan State University National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory

This is a historical facility. NSCL ran as a National Science Foundation user facility for four decades, and its final experiment was completed in May 2022, forty years after its first [2]. The Facility for Rare Isotope Beams took the site over on the same campus and under the same university: FRIB was completed in January 2022 and its user experiments began on 9 May 2022 [2]. Heavy ion single event effects work at Michigan State continues at FRIB, which runs the FRIB Single Event Effects Facility from its linear accelerator and, since 19 February 2026, the K500 Chip Testing Facility built on the refurbished NSCL K500 cyclotron [3]. Between them the two offer up to 8000 user hours a year [4]. The coupled K500 and K1200 configuration described below is the thing that no longer exists: the K500 now runs alone into a dedicated test cave, and the K1200 was retired with the rest of the cyclotron laboratory. Contact FRIB for current beams and cost.

The February and May 2004 commissioning campaign cross-validated the facility against Brookhaven and TAASC on the same parts, and that comparison does not expire with the machine [1].

The Single Event Effects Test Facility at the NSCL exists to solve one problem the lower energy accelerators cannot: energy. Its coupled K500 and K1200 cyclotrons deliver heavy ions at 60 to 143 MeV per nucleon, high enough to reproduce about 99 percent of the space radiation linear energy transfer and energy phase space above LET 3 MeV-cm2/mg, and high enough to cross a commercial package overlayer and still deposit at the sensitive volume [1]. Parts are tested in air, undelidded.

What it costs is the ability to sweep. Switching ion species requires about 24 hours of tuning, so a run normally uses a single ion and cannot map a full cross section against LET curve without paying for the retunes [1]. That is the exact inverse of the Berkeley cocktail, and it is the reason the two facilities are used for different questions rather than as substitutes.

Every facility parameter below is from the 2004 commissioning report, which describes the later upgrades only as plans [1].

Laboratory data

Parameter	Value
Operator	Michigan State University, National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory [1]
Location	East Lansing, Michigan, United States
Commissioned	Inaugural single event effects runs February and May 2004 [1]
Type	Coupled K500 and K1200 cyclotrons, high-energy heavy ion single event effects
Floor area	Not published
Capabilities	SEETF beam line
Simulant or terrain	Not applicable
Instrumentation	Parallel plate avalanche counter; four-quadrant thin scintillator [1]
Ground truth	Cross sections validated against Brookhaven and TAASC results on the same part [1]
Fidelity limits	Single ion species per run; 24 hour species change [1]
Access	Under 600 beam hours per year for single event effects work [1]
Cited by	radiation testing

Beam time cost 2300 to 2700 US dollars per hour at the 2004 rate, several times the cost at Brookhaven, Berkeley or Texas A&M [1]. Cost and availability, not physics, are what keep this facility a specialist choice.

Capabilities

SEETF beam line

Parameter	Value
Working volume	5 by 5 cm beam spot, uniformity better than 85 percent [1]
Test article limits	Most commercial parts testable without delidding [1]
Vacuum	None. Exposures are run in air [1]
Temperature	Not published
Illumination	Not applicable
Slope	Not applicable
Gravity offload	Not applicable
Instrumentation	Upstream attenuator changes flux in under 30 minutes, typically under 5 [1]

Ion energy is 60 to 143 MeV per nucleon, and the inaugural runs delivered 9574 MeV krypton and 15048 MeV bismuth [1]. Usable flux runs from 1e2 to 1e5 ions/cm2/s, set by an attenuator upstream of the accelerators so the machine is not detuned at the target. Dosimetry is by a parallel plate avalanche counter below 4e4 ions/cm2/s and a four-quadrant thin scintillator above that, to about 1.5e5 [1].

Where a part cannot be delidded, the LET behind the overlayer is determined by charge collection spectroscopy on a delidded identical part rather than by assuming the package composition [1]. That step is the facility’s answer to its own headline capability, and it is not optional.

What it does not reproduce

The spectrum, and a cross section curve in one run. The 99 percent phase-space figure is about coverage of the LET and energy plane, not about reproducing a spectrum: the beam is still monoenergetic and single-species, and the 24 hour retune means one run yields points at one LET [1]. See the radiation testing page for what can be argued from that.

Package transparency, if the package is not what you assumed. The commissioning report documents the trap directly. A plastic-packaged IDT71256 256 K SRAM gave an apparent upset cross section a hundred times below the same part delidded, on a degraded krypton beam, because the plastic was far denser than a pure polymer and the ions ranged out before reaching the sensitive volume [1]. Testing through a package is only as good as the knowledge of what the package is made of.

A user’s guide. This is a commissioning report from two runs. Facility parameters date from 2004 and no published source updates them [1].

Campaigns run there

Commissioning and cross-validation, 2004. A delidded Matra HM65656 256 K SRAM measured 1.35e-3 cm2 upset cross section under 9574 MeV krypton at LET 7.1 MeV-cm2/mg, and the cross sections measured here agree with results from Brookhaven and TAASC on the same parts across beam energies spanning a factor of forty [1]. That agreement is the argument that the facility measures the same quantity the established ones do.