An introduction to experimental and modeling methods of evaluation of high power microwave effects on digital microelectronic systems

Effectively defending against high power microwave (HPM) attacks on microelectronic systems requires accurately assessing and characterizing the scope of the threats presented by different HPM effects. We are studying the operation of digital CMOS systems exposed to HPM radiation, to experimentally identify critical failure thresholds and model these effects using BSIM compact device modeling and semiconductor parameter extraction. We report results from an example integrated circuit (IC), a custom-designed inverter with electrostatic discharge (ESD) protection. We were able to identify effects such as increased power dissipation and bias shift.