Abstract
This paper presents a procedure to analyse the effects of radiation in an IEEE 802.15.4 RF receiver for wireless sensor networks (WSNs). Specifically, single-event transients (SETs) represent one of the greatest threats to the adequate performance of electronic communication devices in high-radiation environments. The proposed procedure consists in injecting current pulses in sensitive nodes of the receiver and analysing how they propagate through the different circuits that form the receiver. In order to perform this analysis, a Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor (CMOS) low-IF receiver has been designed using a 0.18 μm technology from the foundry UMC. In order to analyse the effect of single-event transients in this receiver, it has been studied how current pulses generated in the low-noise amplifier propagate down the receiver chain. The effect of the different circuits that form the receiver on this kind of pulse has been studied prior to the analysis of the complete receiver. First, the effect of SETs in low-noise amplifiers was analysed. Then, the propagation of pulses through mixers was studied. The effect of filters in the analysed current pulses has also been studied. Regarding the analysis of the designed RF receiver, an amplitude and phase shift was observed under the presence of SETs.
Highlights
Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) have allowed the implementation of interconnected electronic systems in a wide number of fields such as industry, environmental applications or medicine [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10].there still exist several applications in which high radiation represents an obstacle for the use of this kind of network [11]
−e t f − tr where Q is the collected charge, and t f and tr are the fall and rise time, respectively. This is in concordance with a typical model used to simulate the effects of single-event transients (SETs) in Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor (CMOS) technologies, based on introducing double-exponential current pulses in critical nodes of the circuits [17,33]
A theoretical study of how SETs generated at the low-noise amplifier (LNA) propagate through an ideal mixer that follows the structure shown in Figure 5a has been performed
Summary
Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) have allowed the implementation of interconnected electronic systems in a wide number of fields such as industry, environmental applications or medicine [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10]. The shielding cannot fully stop the high-energy particles from reaching the electronics It is a major goal in the radiation effects research community to develop radiation-hardened sensor devices, robust circuits and systems that can operate in high-radiation environments [12,13,14,15,16]. Despite the advantages of using GaN, SiGe or SOI processes, CMOS technologies provide a much more cost-efficient solution [28] These technologies are not inherently tolerant to radiation, but they can be suitable for harsh environment applications by implementing RHBD techniques [29]. The methodology that has been employed consists of applying current pulses in the critical nodes of the LNA and analysing the voltage signal at different nodes of the receiver
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