Single-Event Sensitivity and Hardening of a Pipelined Analog-to-Digital Converter

Circuit simulations are used to determine the response of a pipelined analog-to-digital converter (ADC) to radiation-induced single-event transients. The ADC uses a cascade of 9 stages which each resolve 1.5 bits. Digital error correction is used to reassemble the bits and to correct for errors in the comparators and sub-DAC. A Monte-Carlo methodology is used to simulate the single-event vulnerability of the circuit. Circuit simulations are performed using the Spectre circuit simulator. Sensitive cross-sections were derived from an analysis of the simulation results. Sensitive areas were identified and hardening techniques were applied to the circuit. These techniques may be applicable to other mixed-signal and switched-capacitor circuits. A significant reduction in the sensitive cross-section was obtained by application of these hardening techniques