An Investigation of Single-Event Transients in C-SiGe HBT on SOI Current Mirror Circuits

Author

Seungwoo Jung ; Lourenco, Nelson E. ; Ickhyun Song ; Oakley, Michael A. ; England, Troy D. ; Arora, Rajkumar ; Cardoso, Adilson S. ; Roche, Nicholas J.-H ; Khachatrian, Ani ; McMorrow, Dale ; Buchner, Stephen P. ; Melinger, Joseph S. ; Warner, Jeffrey H.

Author_Institution

Sch. of Electr. & Comput. Eng., Georgia Inst. of Technol., Atlanta, GA, USA

Volume

61

Issue

6

fYear

2014

fDate

Dec. 2014

Firstpage

3193

Lastpage

3200

Abstract

The single-event effect sensitivity of three different commonly employed current mirror circuits, as well as an unconventional inverse-mode current mirror, all implemented in C-SiGe (NPN + PNP) HBT on SOI technology are investigated. Comparisons of the measured data of the basic NPN and PNP current mirror circuits show higher single-event radiation tolerance of PNP SiGe HBTs compared with NPN SiGe HBTs. The concept of utilizing inverse-mode SiGe HBTs in current mirror circuits is investigated. Measurement results validate the feasibility of employing inverse-mode PNP SiGe HBTs in current mirrors and show an excellent resilience against ion-strikes. Full 3-D NanoTCAD models of the SiGe HBTs are developed and used in mixed-mode TCAD simulations (within Cadence) to validate the measurement results. Finally, based on the measurement data and analysis of the four current mirrors, some practical suggestions and observations are offered for operation of such circuits in extreme environments.

Keywords

Ge-Si alloys; current mirrors; heterojunction bipolar transistors; radiation hardening (electronics); silicon-on-insulator; transients; 3D NanoTCAD models; HBT; NPN current mirror circuits; PNP current mirror circuits; SOI current mirror circuits; SiGe; inverse mode current mirror; mixed mode TCAD simulations; single event radiation tolerance; single event transients; Heterojunction bipolar transistors; Mirrors; Radiation hardening (electronics); Silicon germanium; Single event transients; Single event upsets; Transient analysis; Current mirrors; SiGe HBT; TCAD; inverse-mode operation; mixed-mode simulation; radiation hardening; single-event effects; single-event transient; single-event upset;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Nuclear Science, IEEE Transactions on

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0018-9499

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/TNS.2014.2358207

Filename

6935039