Radiation hardening of CMOS/SOS integrated circuits

Radiation tolerant CMOS circuits can be made by building them in a thin film of silicon-on-sapphire (SOS) with a hard gate dielectric. Radiation effects in MOS devices are reviewed, and the problems associated with radiation tolerant CMOS/SOS devices are described. Some gate dielectric techniques which show promise in hardening CMOS circuits are presented, and the radiation behavior of Al2O3gate dielectrics are described.