Transient Hardened Power FETS

N-channel power FETs offer significant advantages in power conditioning circuits. Similarly to all MOS technologies, power FET devices are vulnerable to ionizing radiation, and are particularly susceptible to burn-out in high dose rate irradiations (>1E10 rad(Si)/s), which precludes their use in many military environments. This paper will sumnarize the physical mechanisms responsible for burn-out, and discuss various fabrication techniques designed to improve the transient hardness of power FETs. Power FET devices were fabricated with several of these techniques, and data will be presented which demonstrates that transient hardness levels in excess of lE12 rad(Si)/s are easily achievable.