Hardness assurance testing of bipolar junction transistors at elevated irradiation temperatures
- Aerospace Corp., Los Angeles, CA (United States). Electronics Technology Center
- Vanderbilt Univ., Nashville, TN (United States). Dept. of Electrical and Computer Engineering
- Sandia National Labs., Albuquerque, NM (United States)
- National Inst. of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, MD (United States)
- RLP Research, Inc., Albuquerque, NM (United States)
The effect of dose rate on radiation-induced current gain degradation was quantified for radiation-hardened poly-Si emitter npn bipolar transistors over the range of 0.005 to 294 rad(Si)/s. Degradation increases sharply with decreasing dose rate and saturates near 0.005 rad(Si)/s. The amount of degradation enhancement at low dose rates decreases monotonically with total dose. In addition, the effect of ambient temperature on radiation-induced gain degradation at 294 rad(Si)/s was investigated over the range of 25 to 240 C. Degradation is enhanced with increasing temperature while simultaneously being moderated by in situ annealing, such that, for a given total dose, an optimum irradiation temperature for maximum degradation results. The optimum irradiation temperature decreases logarithmically with total dose and, for a given dose, is smaller than optimum temperatures reported previously for pnp devices. High dose rate irradiation at elevated temperatures is less effective at simulating low dose rate degradation for the npn transistor of the pnp transistors. However, additional degradation of the npn device at elevated temperatures is easily obtained using overtest. Differences in the radiation responses of the device types are attributed to the relative effects of oxide trapped charge on gain degradation. High dose rate irradiation near 125 C is found to be suitable for the hardness assurance testing of these devices provided a design margin of at least two is employed.
- Research Organization:
- Sandia National Laboratory
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE, Washington, DC (United States)
- DOE Contract Number:
- AC04-94AL85000
- OSTI ID:
- 644193
- Report Number(s):
- CONF-970711--
- Journal Information:
- IEEE Transactions on Nuclear Science, Journal Name: IEEE Transactions on Nuclear Science Journal Issue: 6Pt1 Vol. 44; ISSN 0018-9499; ISSN IETNAE
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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