Heavy ion transient characterization of a hardened-by-design active pixel sensor array

Author

Marshall, Cheryl J. ; LaBel, Kenneth A. ; Reed, Robert A. ; Marshall, Paul W. ; Byers, Wheaton B. ; Conger, Christopher ; Peden, Joe ; Eid, El-Sayed ; Jones, Michael R. ; Kniffin, Scott ; Gee, George ; Pickel, Jim

Author_Institution

NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD, USA

fYear

2002

fDate

2002

Firstpage

187

Lastpage

193

Abstract

This paper presents heavy ion test data on the single event transient response of an active pixel sensor four quadrant test chip with different radiation tolerant designs in a commercial 0.35 μm CMOS process. The physical design techniques of enclosed geometry and P-type guard rings are used to design the four N-type active photodiode pixels as described in a previous paper (EI-Sayed Eid et al, IEEE Trans. Nucl. Sci., Vol. 48, pp. 1796-1806, Dec. 2001). Transient measurements on the 256×256 pixel array as a function of Ar ion incidence angle show a significant variation in the amount of charge collected as well as the charge spreading dependent on the pixel type. The results are correlated with processing and design information provided by Photobit. In addition, there is a significant variability between individual ion strikes for some unit cell designs. No latch-up is observed up to an LET (linear energy transfer) of 106 MeV/mg/cm².

Keywords

CMOS image sensors; integrated circuit reliability; integrated circuit testing; ion beam effects; photodiodes; radiation hardening (electronics); transient response; 0.35 micron; 65536 pixel; APS; Ar; Ar ion incidence angle; CMOS hardened-by-design active pixel sensor arrays; CMOS process; LET; N-type active photodiode pixels; P-type guard rings; active pixel sensor four quadrant test chips; array heavy ion transient characterization; charge collection; enclosed geometry design techniques; heavy ion testing; latch-up; linear energy transfer; pixel array transient measurements; pixel type dependent charge spreading; radiation effects; radiation hardness; radiation tolerance; single event transient response; unit cell individual ion strike variability; CMOS process; Current measurement; Geometry; Photodiodes; Process design; Radiation hardening; Sensor arrays; Sensor phenomena and characterization; Testing; Transient response;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Radiation Effects Data Workshop, 2002 IEEE

Print_ISBN

0-7803-7544-0

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/REDW.2002.1045552

Filename

1045552