Measured RF induced non-linear effects in digital electronics

This paper covers measurements taken from directly injecting RF signals, in the range of 1.0-6.0 GHz, into the input ports of selected digital circuits used to determine the susceptibilities of modern electronics to electromagnetic interference. Measurements taken at the input and output of various CMOS inverters indicated incident RF pulses are rectified at the input of a device, causing a DC voltage to be induced and triggering the successive CMOS stages to switch as in normal operation. Device switching susceptibilities increased with increasing input bias DC levels. With additional AM modulation applied to the injected RF pulse, the AM modulation was seen to be amplified during a voltage level shift. The devices that showed robustness to single frequency RF pulses, were shown to be susceptible to wideband modulated pulses.