Single event effect characterization of the mixed-signal ASIC developed for CCD camera in space use

• Published in: Nuclear instruments & methods in physics research. Section A, Accelerators, spectrometers, detectors and associated equipment Vol. 731; pp. 166 - 171
• Main Authors: Nakajima, Hiroshi, Fujikawa, Mari, Mori, Hideki, Kan, Hiroaki, Ueda, Shutaro, Kosugi, Hiroko, Anabuki, Naohisa, Hayashida, Kiyoshi, Tsunemi, Hiroshi, Doty, John P., Ikeda, Hirokazu, Kitamura, Hisashi, Uchihori, Yukio
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier B.V 01.12.2013
• Subjects: ASIC; CCD camera; Charge coupled devices; Detectors; Latch-up; Onboard; Single event effect; Single Event Effects; Spectrometers; Tolerances; X-ray; X-rays; ASIC; CCD camera; X-ray; Single event effect
• ISSN: 0168-9002; 1872-9576
• DOI: 10.1016/j.nima.2013.05.146

We present the single event effect (SEE) tolerance of a mixed-signal application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) developed for a charge-coupled device camera onboard a future X-ray astronomical mission. We adopted proton and heavy ion beams at HIMAC/NIRS in Japan. The particles with high linear energy transfer (LET) of 57.9MeVcm2/mg is used to measure the single event latch-up (SEL) tolerance, which results in a sufficiently low cross-section of σSEL<4.2×10−11cm2/(Ion×ASIC). The single event upset (SEU) tolerance is estimated with various kinds of species with wide range of energy. Taking into account that a part of the protons creates recoiled heavy ions that have higher LET than that of the incident protons, we derived the probability of SEU event as a function of LET. Then the SEE event rate in a low-earth orbit is estimated considering a simulation result of LET spectrum. SEL rate is below once per 49years, which satisfies the required latch-up tolerance. The upper limit of the SEU rate is derived to be 1.3×10−3events/s. Although the SEU events cannot be distinguished from the signals of X-ray photons from astronomical objects, the derived SEU rate is below 1.3% of expected non-X-ray background rate of the detector and hence these events should not be a major component of the instrumental background.