Radiation hardness evaluation of a 0.25 µm SiGe BiCMOS technology with LDMOS module

Abstract

In recent years, several radiation tests on IHP's 0.25 µm SiGe BiCMOS technology SGB25V have been performed. For evaluation by the European Space Components Coordination (ESCC), it has been decided to spin off a dedicated radiation-hard technology SGB25RH for applications in space and high energy physics. In this technology special radiation hard layouts and IP blocks are developed. Because SGB25V and SGB25RH use the same fabrication process, results from investigations on SGB25V are also valid for SGB25RH as long as standard devies are used. All devices under test showed acceptable performance up to radiation levels around 100 kGy (10Mrad). Also, the technology proved to be latch-up-free up to an effective linear energy transfer (LET) of 85MeVcm2 mg−1. For circuit design for radition hard applications a dedicated design kit with new device layouts and special design rules is presented. Additionally, we will sketch future work of modeling and additional devices designed specifically for radiation environments.