High Dose Rate Burnout in Silicon Epitaxial Transistors

This paper presents experimental results for ionizing radiation-induced burnout in n-p-n transistors. The results indicate a dose-rate and a collector bias threshold for transistor burnout. The collector voltage threshold was shown to be on the order of 2/3 BVCEO and the dose-rate threshold was shown to be on the order of 2 × 1010 rad(Si)/s. The triggering mechanism was postulated to be caused by high current injection which results in avalanche breakdown fields developing across the n-n+ substrate boundary.