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U.S. Department of Energy
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Effects of shadows on photocurrent-compensated integrated circuits. Interim report

Technical Report ·
OSTI ID:7355145

Simple calculations show that high-z components, such as wires, capacitors, and solder bonds, can easily cast shadows with edges only 25-micrometers wide when illuminated with a low-energy (E less than 60 keV) x-ray beam. If one of these shadows falls between a photocurrent-compensating diode-transistor pair, the mismatch in dose can drastically reduce the transient hardness of the integrated circuit. Results of pulsed x-ray tests on the Texas Instruments RSN 54L 71 R--S flip-flop and RSN 54L 00 quad two-input nand gate showed that the upset threshold of a given state of the flip-flop was lowered by as much as a factor of 29 and the nand gate by a factor of 5.7.

Research Organization:
Aerospace Corp., El Segundo, Calif. (USA). Materials Sciences Lab.
OSTI ID:
7355145
Report Number(s):
AD/A-009841
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English