Radiation Test on a Small DC-DC Converter.

摘要

This report presents the approach to and results of the total dose and dose rate testing on a typical low-power dc-dc converter used in cellular phones, beepers, and other portable devices. The dc-dc power converter under test will be employed to convert the unregulated battery voltage to a regulated 5-V bus in the power system of the PowerSphere power management architecture for micro- and nano-satellites and the Pico-2 picosatellites currently under development by The Aerospace Corporation. The purpose of the test was to characterize the performance of the converter under radiation effects, as well as to determine the level of total dose tolerance at which the converter's performance starts deteriorating. The electrical measurements, focused on key parameters such as regulation control, ripple, and efficiency of the converter, were performed at several levels of total dose up to 100 krad(Si). Performance degradation of the dc-dc converters caused by irradiation effect was analyzed. The irradiation test was performed at both high and low dose rates to evaluate the dose-rate sensitivity of the device. The result of the test was also presented to the Government Microcircuit Application Conference (GOMAC 2001) at San Antonio, Texas, USA, in March 3-8, 2001.