  The soft error rate (SER) of integrated circuits (ICs) operating in space
environment may vary by several orders of magnitude due to the variable
intensity of radiation exposure. To ensure the radiation hardness without
compromising the system performance, it is necessary to implement the dynamic
hardening mechanisms which can be activated under the critical radiation
exposure. Such operating scenario requires the real-time detection of energetic
particles responsible for the soft errors. Although numerous particle detection
solutions have been reported, very few works address the on-chip particle
detectors suited for the self-adaptive fault tolerant microprocessor systems
for space missions. This work reviews the state-of-the-art particle detectors,
with emphasis on two solutions for the self-adaptive systems: particle detector
based on embedded SRAM and particle detector based on pulse stretching
inverters.
