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Influence of photocurrent representation on latchup

Conference · · Trans. Am. Nucl. Soc.; (United States)
OSTI ID:5567290

The Rennselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) linear accelerator (Linac) is used to study the effects of transient ionizing radiation on electronics. Research at RPI is concerned with understanding the phenomena that occur and assuring meaningful measurements. A particular phenomenon of concern is latchup, when a pnpn path is induced to behave like a silicon-controlled rectifier (SCR) and switch on. Latchup frequently is studied by postulating an independent current source in a standard circuit analysis program, SPICE. It also may be studied by use of a circuit analysis program that provides explicitly for calculating photocurrent from transient dose, e.g., TRISPICE. In this paper, it is demonstrated (using RPI-TRISPICE, a version of TRISPICE adapted at RPI to deal with bipolar devices and with nonlinear effects) that the photocurrent modeling is important and that misleading conclusions can be obtained regarding latchup and regarding the suitability of particular latchup tests when explicit photocurrent modeling is not used.

Research Organization:
Rennselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY
OSTI ID:
5567290
Report Number(s):
CONF-870601-
Journal Information:
Trans. Am. Nucl. Soc.; (United States), Journal Name: Trans. Am. Nucl. Soc.; (United States) Vol. 54; ISSN TANSA
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English