Total ionizing dose effects on front-end electronics with impedance spectroscopy

Total Ionizing Dose (TID) effects were investigated in LVDS receivers based on BiCMOS technology and in voltage translators based on pure NMOS technology using conventional electrical measurements and impedance spectroscopy. The devices were irradiated at the same 60 Co facility at 15 kGy for LVDS receivers and at 20 kGy for voltage translators. During irradiation, both technologies showed similar trends of the supply current as a function of dose. This suggests that the response of the LVDS receivers is mainly driven by MOS-related degradation mechanisms. For both devices under test, impedance spectroscopy enabled the investigation of radiation-induced leakage and relaxation phenomena through the analysis of the impedance response over the frequency range from 1 MHz to 1 Hz. For LVDS receivers, we studied the power ring, a device section not typicality analyzed in this kind of study. For the voltage translators, MOS capacitor-like structures were investigated. Overall, this work demonstrates that impedance spectroscopy is a powerful and complementary technique for investigating radiation effects in electronic devices.