Radiation effects and annealing behaviour of operational amplifiers for space application

Radiation effects of electronic components need to be studied for space applications. Since 1994, following the Perry COTS Initiative, there is need to understand, characterize and qualify commercially off the shelf (COTS) electronic components, like operational amplifiers, at various radiation dose levels as encountered in space. In this paper we study and characterize the performance of a number of different types of operational amplifiers for total dose up to 50 krad(Si). The devices were radiated at a rate of 10 krad(Si)/hour up to a total dose of 10 krad(Si) and then were radiated at 40 krad(Si)/hour until a total dose of 50 krad(Si) was reached. All radiation experiments were carried out at McMaster University in Hamilton Ontario. Various annealing behaviour are also studied. The key performance characteristics studied are the gain-bandwidth, noise voltage, total harmonic distortion and offset voltage. Operational amplifiers based on CMOS, bipolar and BiCMOS technologies are studied. The differences in the degradation behaviour are discussed.