High-temperature silicon-on-insulator electronics for space nuclear power systems: requirements and feasibility

Author

Fleetwood, D.M. ; Thome, F.V. ; Tsao, S.S. ; Dressendorfer, P.V. ; Dandini, V.J. ; Schwank, J.R.

Author_Institution

Sandia Nat. Lab., Albuquerque, NM, USA

Volume

35

Issue

5

fYear

1988

fDate

10/1/1988 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

1099

Lastpage

1112

Abstract

The authors performed a study to determine whether silicon very large-scale integrated circuits (VLSICs) can survive the high temperature (up to 300° C) and total-dose radiation environments (up to 10 Mrad over a 7-10-y system life) projected for a very-high power space nuclear reactor platform. It is shown that circuits built on bulk epitaxial silicon cannot meet the temperature requirement because of excessive junction leakage currents. However, circuits built on silicon-on-insulator (SOI) material can meet both the radiation and temperature requirements. It is also found that the temperature dependence of the threshold voltage of the SOI transistors is less than that of bulk transistors. Survivability of high-temperature SOI VLSICs in space, including immunity to transient and single-event upset, is also addressed

Keywords

VLSI; circuit reliability; environmental degradation; field effect integrated circuits; radiation effects; radiation hardening (electronics); space vehicle power plants; 1×10⁷ rad; 300 degC; 7 to 10 y; SOI transistors; Si; VLSICs; high temperature; junction leakage currents; monolithic IC; silicon-on-insulator electronics; single-event upset; space nuclear power systems; threshold voltage; total-dose radiation environments; very large-scale integrated circuits; very-high power space nuclear reactor platform; Annealing; Circuits; Inductors; Nuclear electronics; Nuclear power generation; Power generation; Power systems; Reactor instrumentation; Silicon on insulator technology; Temperature dependence;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Nuclear Science, IEEE Transactions on

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0018-9499

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/23.7506

Filename

7506