Device Degradation by High Amplitude Currents and Response Characteristics of Discrete Resistors

In designing or analyzing electronic circuits for nuclear radiation hardness it is important to know the response of components and their failure levels due to high level current pulses. Theoretical and experimental studies have been conducted on film, carbon composition and wirewound resistors to determine the power or voltage required to cause failure as a function of pulse width. Certain film resistors exhibit failure at the millijoule total energy level which is within the same energy range of concern for many semiconductor devices. Larger wattage carbon composition and wirewound resistors on the other hand were able to absorb tens of joules of energy without failure corresponding to tens of megawatts of power for 1 microsecond pulses. Simplified failure and response models are described.