Impact of Proton Irradiation on the RF Performance of 65 nm SOI CMOS Technology

The effects of 63 MeV proton irradiation on 65 nm Silicon-On-Insulator (SOI) CMOS technology are presented for the first time. The radiation response of the CMOS devices was investigated up to an equivalent total gamma dose of 4.1 Mrad (SiO₂). We analyze the implications of proton irradiation on RF performance of these devices. The cut-off frequency is degraded due to post-irradiation degradation of device transconductance. High-frequency measurements show that the input and output matching conditions are not affected, up to a cumulative dose of 4.1 Mrad. The implications of proton irradiation on device design constraints, particularly device width and number of gate fingers, are discussed in the context of high performance RF CMOS technology. These results suggest that multi-finger CMOS devices with higher finger width are better-suited for the development of total-dose radiation tolerant analog and RF circuits without additional radiation hardening.