Soft Error Tolerant Bandgap Reference Utilizing Single-Event Transient Filtering Technique

• Published in: IEEE transactions on nuclear science Vol. 71; no. 4; p. 1
• Main Authors: Liu, Jingtian, Wang, Dongsheng, Liang, Bin, Chi, Yaqing, Luo, Deng, Xu, Shi
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York IEEE 01.04.2024; The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
• Subjects: Amplitude; Bandgap reference; Electric potential; Electronic systems; Energy gap; Lasers; Mitigation; Perturbation methods; Photonic band gap; Pulse amplitude; Radiation; Radiation hardening; radiation-hardened-by-design (RHBD); Resistors; single-event transient (SET); Soft errors; Switches; Threshold voltage; Transient analysis; Transistors; Voltage
• ISSN: 0018-9499; 1558-1578
• DOI: 10.1109/TNS.2024.3381932

Bandgap is a critical block for numerous electronic systems, which provides stable voltage reference for multiple sub-modules over process, voltage supply, and temperature (PVT) fluctuations. This paper firstly proposes a radiation-hardened-by-design (RHBD) technique which can automatically detect single-event transient (SET) disturbances and convert them into nanosecond-scale alternating signals, which can then be easily filtered by an on-chip filter. Theoretically, this technique can reduce SET amplitude to a negligible level regardless of bandgap structure and the output DC voltage. Laser experiments indicate that the SET pulse amplitude can be reduced from 896 mV to 48 mV under 800 pJ laser strike. This technique provides new guidance for SET mitigation on constant DC voltage and is widely applicable for bandgap radiation-hardening design.