Radiation effects facility RADEF

Abstract

Since the first days of the space conquest, electronic components have changed remarkably. In the seventies, single event effects (SEE), caused by heavy ions and protons, were unknown. The increase in integration density led first to single event upsets and later, with the CMOS technology, single event latchups etc... The end of the cold war crashed the military market and, since that, the growing acceptance of COTS components in space systems has encouraged the major manufacturers to withdraw from the RadHard component production. Therefore, one had to start testing of the SEE durability of COTS components with particle accelerators.