Modeling and Mitigating Single-Event Transients in Voltage-Controlled Oscillators

Voltage-controlled oscillators (VCOs) have been shown to dominate the single-event transient (SET) response of mixed-signal circuits such as the phase-locked loop (PLL). An analytical model is presented to determine the VCO design parameters and the associated SET vulnerability. Additionally, radiation-hardened-by-design (RHBD) techniques to mitigate SETs in current-starved VCOs are presented. The proposed mitigation techniques reduce the phase displacement in the output of the VCO following a single-event (SE) by approximately 66%. The availability of the analytical model and RHBD techniques will improve the SE performance of VCO and PLL designs to ensure a specified tolerance to SEs.