Susceptibility of CMOS IC Devices Under Narrow-Band High Power Electromagnetic Waves by Magnetron

Abstract

We investigated the damage effects of CMOS IC devices manufactured using three different technologies under narrow-band high power electromagnetic (NB-HPEM) waves by magnetron. The output of NB-HPEM waves was controlled from 0 to 1 kW, and the narrow-band operating frequency was 2, 460±50 MHz. The NB-HPEM waves were propagated into a closed-ended standard rectangular waveguide for 1 s. During our investigation, six different semiconductor technologies (three CMOS AND, and three CMOS NAND devices) were tested. The CMOS IC devices showed two types of damage i) malfunction, which means that no physical damage occurred in the system and after a reset, the system returned to normal function, and ii) destruction, which means that the system incurred physical damage, and operation could not be recovered without hardware repair. We increased the electric field, and the HCT and HC series of CMOS AND and NAND devices underwent reversible malfunctions. Furthermore, the HCT and HC series of CMOS AND and NAND devices were not destroyed at the maximum electric field (E max = 23.938 kV/m). However, only the AC series of CMOS AND and NAND devices underwent reversible malfunctions and experienced permanent destruction at much higher fields. The surfaces of the destroyed CMOS devices were removed and the chip conditions were investigated with a microscope. The microscopic analysis of the damaged devices showed component and bondwire destruction such as breakthroughs and melting due to thermal effects. Our results are expected to provide fundamental data for interpreting the combined failure mechanism of digital IC devices in an intentional electromagnetic environment.