Effects of electron-hole generation, transport and trapping in MOSFETs due to γ-ray exposure

Ionizing radiation has been found to seriously change the electrical properties of solid-state devices, leading to possible systems failure. The ionizing radiation effects on different n- and p-channel MOSFETs have been studied, where the failure mechanism is found to be mainly due to changes in oxide properties and surface effects which occur in the gate oxide and, or, field/oxide regions. As a result, the threshold voltage of the n-channel transistor was shifted from 1.10 to 2.65 V, while the channel mobility for both the n- and p-channel transistors decreases from 4500 and 3100 to 2000 and 100 m2/V·s, respectively. Besides, the transconductance drops from 610, 500 and 380 down to 51, 35 and 150 mS for the MFE 201 (n-channel), 3N128 (n-channel) and 3N163 (p-channel) transistors, respectively. Also, the net effect of charge trapping can also be seen as a random, stochastical process represented by global noise parameters. Finally, the gain and noise parameters have been investigated as a function of γ-dose.