Transient Radiation Hardened CMOS (Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor) Operational Amplifiers.

摘要

General strategies are developed for designing radiation hardened bulk and silicon on insulator (SOI) complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) operational amplifiers. Comparisons are made between each technology concerning photocurrent mechanisms and the inherent advantages of SOI CMOS. Methods are presented for analysing circuit designs and minimizing the net photocurrent responses. Analysis is performed on standard operational amplifier circuits and subcircuits to demonstrate the usefulness of these methods. Radiation hardening topics discussed include superior radiation hardened topologies, photocurrent compensation and its limitations, and methods to ensure a preferred direction of photocurrent response. Several operational amplifier subcircuits are compared for their hardness characteristics. Folded cascode and three-stage operational amplifiers were fabricated on an SOI CMOS test chip supported by Texas Instruments, Incorporated. At the time of publication, the circuit operation was verified but radiation data were not yet available. (JHD)