ISSN 2348-1218 (print) International Journal of Interdisciplinary Research and Innovations ISSN 2348-1226 (online) Vol. 3, Issue 1, pp: (107-122), Month: January - March 2015, Available at: www.researchpublish.com Page | 107 Research Publish Journals Experimental Analysis and Investigation on the Effects of Radiations on Integrated Circuits for Space Applications Gianluca Borgese 1 , Calogero Pace 2 1 University of Calabria (UNICAL) 2 Department of Computer Engineering, Modeling, Electronics and Systems (DIMES), Arcavacata di Rende (CS), Italy Abstract: In this article the effects of radiations on discrete and complex electronic devices were analyzed. In the preliminary phase of this work the space environment was studied, referring to radiations and their effects on the matter and on electronic devices. The main radiation-hardening techniques were investigated, in particular the "by-layout" techniques. One of these rad-hard devices is the edgeless transistor (ELT). A static electrical characterization, before the irradiation (fresh condition), was conducted on these devices in order to evaluate their features with respect to the standard ones (STD). The measures have highlighted the differences between the ELT types, confirming the main features of ELTs, as shown in literature as well. Another investigation regarded the irradiation test of some 8Mbit TOPAZ flash memories using Boron ions. These test were conducted both in the active state (during the reading of memory cells) and in the passive state (in standby). Thanks to these test, it was possible to study the memory cell bit flips at the changing of the radiation dose, classifying the different bit flip stories dose by dose. Finally, the result was that: the flips of programmed bits were more frequent than ones of non-programmed bits; the memories irradiated in active state had less failures than the ones irradiated in passive state. Some statistical data elaborations were conducted in order to understand the trend of the bit-flip of the cells with the dose. Using these data a predictive model was defined to estimate the mean variation of the memory cell threshold voltage shift with the dose. Keywords: Radiations, Total dose, ELT transistors, pre/post irradiation measurements. I. INTRODUCTION Nowadays, in the space field there is more and more the need to have devices which could work properly under harsh conditions of radiation [1], [2], without suffering severe damages [3], [4]. Often, high radiation-hardness capabilities corresponds to very high cost, because of the use of non-standard technology. The alternative choice could be the use of some design tricks and layout to obtain good level of radiation-hardness, using standard CMOS technology processes [5]. There are several different techniques which allow to increase the radiation-hardness of a system [6]. These techniques can be based on the use of commercial parts in redundant and duplicative configurations (radiation hardening by architecture) [7], the employment of specific material and processing procedure (radiation hardening by process) [8], the design of dopant wells and isolation trenches into the chip layout (radiation hardening by layout) [9]. Considering the specific final application, it is possible to select one of these techniques to develop a radiation-tolerant system, because each technique has pros and cons. It is important also to distinguish between Total Dose Effects (TDE) and Single Event Effects (SEE) [10], [11] on the electronic devices. The first effects are due to the cumulative damage of the semiconductor lattice caused by ionizing radiation over the exposition time and they could affect both analog and digital devices; the latter affect mainly the digital devices and are due to high-energy a particle which travels through the semiconductor