Professor Tim Holman of Vanderbilt University prepared these slides for an upper-level ECE course. This is a pdf of the lecture.
These slides address radiation effects and hardening techniques for analog and mixed‑signal integrated circuits, a topic central to the reliability of modern semiconductor systems operating in space, high‑energy physics, and nuclear environments. The material is presented for the graduate‑level ECE 6304 course at Vanderbilt University and surveys how total‑dose and single‑event phenomena impact circuit performance as device dimensions shrink. Understanding these mechanisms is essential for designing robust electronics that can tolerate the harsh ionizing environments encountered in many advanced applications.
The presentation examines the influence of feature‑size scaling on total‑dose degradation and single‑event transients (SETs), emphasizing that thinner oxides reduce dose effects while lower supply voltages and reduced node capacitances amplify SET susceptibility. Core hardening concepts are introduced, including spatial redundancy (e.g., triple modular redundancy), temporal filtering, hardening via charge sharing (HCS), and hardening via node splitting (HNS). Detailed circuit topologies such as differential charge‑cancellation (DCC) layouts and common‑centroid arrangements exploit charge‑sharing to cancel injected charge, while HNS distributes functionality across parallel paths to preserve signal integrity after an ion strike. The slides also present mixed‑mode simulation results for 90‑nm CMOS common‑centroid transistor pairs and laser‑test measurements of 65‑nm structures, quantifying reductions in sensitive area and improvements in phase displacement.
Armed with this knowledge, learners can explain how continued scaling modifies both total‑dose and single‑event responses, compare the trade‑offs between spatial redundancy and temporal‑filtering strategies, and design analog or mixed‑signal blocks that incorporate HCS or HNS techniques to mitigate SETs. They are also prepared to evaluate experimental laser‑test data, interpreting metrics such as sensitive‑area reduction and phase‑displacement improvement to assess the effectiveness of proposed hardening approaches.