Radiation Effects Research

Overview

Electronic components and systems in microelectronic circuits, when exposed to the harsh radiation environments of space, may degrade or even fail due to the effects of ionizing radiation. This is particularly important in reliability studies and when trying to predict the survival of these systems in space.

The Radiation Effects and Reliability Group at Vanderbilt is working to understand the performance of advanced integrated circuit systems in the space environment. This group is the largest of its kind, both from the point of view of size and research grants, in the United States and includes research in all three effects of radiation viz. Single Event Effects, Dose Rate Effects and Total Ionizing Dose Effects. The work in this group includes research in three different levels of development in microelectronic systems - the Process Level, the Device Level and the Circuit Level.

Topics

Analysis of Single Event Phenomena in submicron CMOS complex combinational circuitry
Total Dose ionizing radiation effects on advanced CMOS and bipolar devices and circuits
Modeling of the Single Event collected charge and current pulse at the device and circuit levels
Low Dose Rate effects in solid-state devices and circuits (simulating the natural space environment)
Development of simulation tools to understand and predict Single Event probabilities at the circuit level
Application of computer simulation tools to radiation effects
Characterization of devices and parameter extractions
Measurement and analysis of ionizing radiation effects on interface traps and carrier mobilities in solid-state devices
Design and simulation of termination structures
Heavy ion single-event burn-out and single-event gate rupture modeling for MOSFET and bipolar power devices
Test methods for predicting the survival of electronics in space

Faculty

Daniel M. Fleetwood
Kenneth F. Galloway
Lloyd W. Massengill
Ron Schrimpf
Bob Weller