There is, I think, something ethereal about i —the square root of minus one. I remember first hearing about it at school. It seemed an odd beast at that time—an intruder hovering on the edge of reality.

Usually familiarity dulls this sense of the bizarre, but in the case of i it was the reverse: over the years the sense of its surreal nature intensified. It seemed that it was impossible to write mathematics that described the real world in …

I and i

Physical mechanisms responsible for nondestructive single-event effects in digital microelectronics are reviewed, concentrating on silicon MOS devices and integrated circuits. A brief historical overview of single-event effects in space and terrestrial systems is given, and upset mechanisms in dynamic random access memories, static random access memories, and combinational logic are detailed. Techniques for mitigating single-event upset are described, as well as methods for predicting device and circuit single-event response using computer simulations. The impact of technology trends on single-event susceptibility and future areas of concern are explored.

Basic mechanisms and modeling of single-event upset in digital microelectronics

Context. CoRoT is a space telescope dedicated to stellar seismology and the search for extrasolar planets. The mission is led by the CNES in association with French laboratories and has a large international participation. The European Space Agency (ESA), Austria, Belgium, and Germany contribute to the payload, and Spain and Brazil contribute to the ground segment. Development of the spacecraft, which is based on a PROTEUS low earth orbit (LEO) recurrent platform, commenced in October 2000, and the satellite was launched on December 27, 2006. Aims. The instrument and platform characteristics prior to launch have been described in ESA publication (SP-1306). In the present paper we explain the behaviour in flight, based on raw and corrected data. Methods. Five runs have been completed since January 2007. The data used here are essentially those acquired during the commissioning phase and from a long run that lasted 146 days. These enable us to give a complete overview of the instrument and platform behaviour for all environmental conditions. The ground based data processing is not described in detail because the most important method has been published elsewhere. Results. We show that the performance specifications are easily satisfied when the environmental conditions are favourable. Most of the perturbations, hence data corrections, are related to LEO perturbations: high energy particles inside the South Atlantic Anomaly (SAA), eclipses and temperature variations, and line of sight fluctuations due to the attitude control system. Straylight due to the reflected light from the earth, which is controlled by the telescope and baffle design, appears to be negligible.

/pdf/the-corot-satellite-in-flight-description-and-performance-4vw6c97tz2.pdf

The CoRoT satellite in flight : description and performance

This paper provides a historical review of the literature on the effects of radiation-induced displacement damage in semiconductor materials and devices. Emphasis is placed on effects in technologically important bulk silicon and silicon devices. The primary goals are to provide a guide to displacement damage literature, to offer critical comments regarding that literature in an attempt to identify key findings, to describe how the understanding of displacement damage mechanisms and effects has evolved, and to note current trends. Selected tutorial elements are included as an aid to presenting the review information more clearly and to provide a frame of reference for the terminology used. The primary approach employed is to present information qualitatively while leaving quantitative details to the cited references. A bibliography of key displacement-damage information sources is also provided.

Review of displacement damage effects in silicon devices

CREME96 is an update of the Cosmic Ray on Micro-Electronics code, a widely-used suite of programs for creating numerical models of the ionizing-radiation environment in near-Earth orbits and for evaluating radiation effects in spacecraft. CREME96, which is now available over the World-Wide Web (WWW) at http://crsp3.nrl.navy.mil/creme96/, has many significant features, including: (1) improved models of the galactic cosmic ray, anomalous cosmic ray, and solar energetic particle ("flare") components of the near-Earth environment; (2) improved geomagnetic transmission calculations; (3) improved nuclear transport routines; (4) improved single-event upset (SEU) calculation techniques, for both proton-induced and direct-ionization-induced SEUs; and (5) an easy-to-use graphical interface, with extensive on-line tutorial information. In this paper we document some of these improvements.

CREME96: A Revision of the Cosmic Ray Effects on Micro-Electronics Code

Proton irradiation results, including dose and single-event effects, for two vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser (VCSEL) diodes and a matching photodiode are presented. The optical components are part of a space instrument communications link for which the bit error rate was also measured during proton beam irradiation. A high-level description of the link hardware design and associated Manchester coding scheme is presented along with the beam test results.

VCSEL and Photodiode Proton Test Results for an Optical Communications Link

This paper presents heavy ion data on the single event transient (SET) response of a Photobit active pixel sensor (APS) four quadrant test chip with different radiation tolerant designs in a standard 0.35 micron CMOS process. The physical design techniques of enclosed geometry and P-channel guard rings are used to design the four N-type active photodiode pixels as described in a previous paper. Argon transient measurements on the 256 x 256 chip array as a function of incident angle show a significant variation in the amount of charge collected as well as the charge spreading dependent on the pixel type. The results are correlated with processing and design information provided by Photobit. In addition, there is a large degree of statistical variability between individual ion strikes. No latch-up is observed up to an LET of 106 MeV/mg/sq cm.

Heavy Ion Transient Characterization of a Photobit Hardened-by-Design Active Pixel Sensor Array

Two types of single-event effects-bit errors and single-event functional interrupts-were observed during heavy-ion testing of the AD8151 crosspoint switch. Bit errors occurred in bursts with the average number of bits in a burst being dependent on both the ion linear energy transfer (LET) and on the data rate. A pulsed laser was used to identify the locations on the chip where the bit errors and single-event functional interrupts occurred. Bit errors originated in the switches, drivers, and output buffers. Single-event functional interrupts originated in the second-rank latch containing the data specifying the state of each switch in the 33/spl times/17 matrix.

/pdf/characteristics-of-single-event-upsets-in-a-fabric-switch-23e47hgxha.pdf

Characteristics of single-event upsets in a fabric switch (AD8151)

The proton induced charge deposition in a well characterized silicon P-i-N focal plane array is analyzed with Monte Carlo based simulations. These simulations include all physical processes, together with pile up, to accurately describe the experimental data. Simulation results reveal important high energy events not easily detected through experiment due to low statistics. The effects of each physical mechanism on the device response is shown for a single proton energy as well as a full proton space flux.

https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/20080039432/downloads/20080039432.pdf

Measurement and Simulation of the Variation in Proton-Induced Energy Deposition in Large Silicon Diode Arrays

The paper presents measurements of proton induced degradation in emerging low power high performance InAs based devices, including InAs/AlSb high electron mobility transistors (HEMT) and In0.86Ga0.14As base 6.0 Aring lattice constant double heterojunction bipolar transistor (DHBT) devices

Paul W. Marshall

Papers

VCSEL and Photodiode Proton Test Results for an Optical Communications Link

Heavy Ion Transient Characterization of a Photobit Hardened-by-Design Active Pixel Sensor Array

Characteristics of single-event upsets in a fabric switch (AD8151)

Measurement and Simulation of the Variation in Proton-Induced Energy Deposition in Large Silicon Diode Arrays

Proton Tolerance of InAs Based HEMT and DHBT Devices