This work represents several years' research into the field of radiation hardening by design. The unique characteristics of a SiGe HBT, described in Chapter 1, make it ideally suitable for use in extreme environment applications.
Chapter 2 describes the total ionizing dose effects experienced by a SiGe HBT, particularly those experienced on an Earth-orbital or lunar-surface mission. In addition, the effects of total dose are evaluated on passive devices.
As opposed to the TID-hardness of SiGe transistors, a clear vulnerability to single-event effects does exist. This field is divided into three chapters. First, the very nature of single-event transients present in SiGe HBTs is explored in Chapter 3 using a heavy-ion microbeam with both bulk and SOI platforms [31]. Then, in Chapter 4, a new device-level SEU-hardening technique is presented along with circuit-design techniques necessarily for its implementation. In Chapter 5, the circuit-level radiation-hardening techniques necessarily to mitigate the effects shown in Chapter 3 are developed and tested [32].
Finally, in Chapter 6, the performance of the SiGe HBT in a cryogenic testing environment is characterized to understand how the widely-varying temperatures of outer space may affect device performance.
Ultimately, the built-in performance, TID-tolerance, and now-developing SEU-hardness of the SiGe HBT make a compelling case for extreme environment electronics. The low-cost, high-yield, and maturity of Si manufacturing combine with modern bandgap engineering and modern CMOS to produce a high-quality, high-performance BiCMOS platform suitable for space-borne systems.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:GATECH/oai:smartech.gatech.edu:1853/33850 |
| Date | 08 April 2010 |
| Creators | Wilcox, Edward |
| Publisher | Georgia Institute of Technology |
| Source Sets | Georgia Tech Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Archive |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
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