Single-event upset effects in optocouplers

Author

Johnston, A.H. ; Swift, G.M. ; Miyahira, T. ; Guertin, S. ; Edmonds, L.D.

Author_Institution

Jet Propulsion Lab., California Inst. of Technol., Pasadena, CA, USA

Volume

45

Issue

6

fYear

1998

fDate

12/1/1998 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

2867

Lastpage

2875

Abstract

Single-event upset is investigated for optocouplers using heavy ions. The threshold LET for optocouplers with internal high-gain amplifiers is very low, causing output transients to occur even when the optocouplers are irradiated with short-range alpha particles. Although previous work with high-energy protons showed that transients were caused by charge collected in the large-area photodetector, transients generated in the high-gain amplifier make a significant contribution to the total cross section when optocouplers are irradiated with heavy ions. The transient pulse width increases with LET, exceeding 400 ns for long-range particles above 7 MeV-cm²/mg. This is about an order of magnitude greater than the pulse width that occurs when they are irradiated with protons. The ion range must exceed 50 μm to characterize the cross section and pulse width in these devices

Keywords

alpha-particle effects; electric charge; ion beam effects; opto-isolators; photodiodes; transients; LED; SEU effects; heavy ions; internal high-gain amplifiers; large-area photodetector; optocouplers; output transients; short-range alpha particles; single-event upset effects; threshold LET; transient pulse width; Circuit testing; Laboratories; Light emitting diodes; Optical amplifiers; Optical coupling; Propulsion; Protons; Pulse amplifiers; Silicon; Space vector pulse width modulation;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Nuclear Science, IEEE Transactions on

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0018-9499

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/23.736541

Filename

736541