Intrinsic SEU reduction from use of heterojunctions in gallium arsenide bipolar circuits
Use of GaAs/AlGaASs heterojunctions at the base emitter junction in MBE-type GaAs biploar circuits reduces the thickness of the SEU sensitive volume associated with each transistor to about 0.2 ..mu..m. This results in a sharply reduced charge collection and a correspondingly sharp reduction in SEU sensitivity even for low values of the critical charge. The effect is illustrated with an H I/sup 2/L gate array developed at Texas Instruments in which shift registers do not exhibit upsets upon exposure to heavy ions with LET values of up to 20 MeV cm/sup 2//mg(GaAs) which is equivalent to over 30 MeV cm/sup 2//mg(Si). A low-current version of the same shift registers exhibits an upset cross section of only 3 E-13 cm/sup 2//bit at an LET of 20 MeV cm/sup 2//mg and zero at 11 MeV cm/sup 2//mg(GaAs). Neither of the devices could be upset by exposure to 63 MeV protons at a fluence of 1E + 12 rho/cm/sup 2/ in agreement with the predictions of the CUPID codes.
- Research Organization:
- Texas Instruments, Dallas, TX (US)
- OSTI ID:
- 7202045
- Report Number(s):
- CONF-8707112-
- Journal Information:
- IEEE Trans. Nucl. Sci.; (United States), Journal Name: IEEE Trans. Nucl. Sci.; (United States) Vol. NS-34:6; ISSN IETNA
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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Related Subjects
360605* -- Materials-- Radiation Effects
42 ENGINEERING
420800 -- Engineering-- Electronic Circuits & Devices-- (-1989)
ARSENIC COMPOUNDS
ARSENIDES
C CODES
CHARGED PARTICLES
CHARGED-PARTICLE TRANSPORT
COMPUTER CODES
CROSS SECTIONS
DESIGN
ELECTRONIC CIRCUITS
ENERGY TRANSFER
GALLIUM ARSENIDES
GALLIUM COMPOUNDS
HEAVY IONS
HETEROJUNCTIONS
IONS
JUNCTIONS
LET
MATERIALS TESTING
PHYSICAL RADIATION EFFECTS
PNICTIDES
PROTON TRANSPORT
RADIATION EFFECTS
RADIATION TRANSPORT
RADIOSENSITIVITY
SEMICONDUCTOR DEVICES
SEMICONDUCTOR JUNCTIONS
TESTING
TRANSISTORS