• Journal of Electrical Engineering and Technology
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• 제12권4호
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• pp.1619-1626
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• 2017

Electronic components that are used in high-level radiation environment require a semiconductor device having a radiation-hardened characteristic. In this paper, we proposed a radiation-hardened I-gate n-MOSFET (n-type Metal Oxide Semiconductors Field Effect Transistors) using a layout modification technique only. The proposed I-gate n-MOSFET structure is modified as an I-shaped gate poly in order to mitigate a radiation-induced leakage current in the standard n-MOSFET structure. For verification of its radiation-hardened characteristic, the M&S (Modeling and Simulation) of the 3D (3-Dimension) structure is performed by TCAD (Technology Computer Aided Design) tool. In addition, we carried out an evaluation test using a $Co^{60}$ gamma-ray source of 10kGy(Si)/h. As a result, we have confirmed the radiation-hardened level up to a total ionizing dose of 20kGy(Si).

• 전기학회논문지
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• 제67권6호
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• pp.745-752
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• 2018

ICs(Integrated circuits) for nuclear power plant exposed to radiation environment occur malfunctions and data errors by the TID(Total ionizing dose) effects among radiation-damage phenomenons. In order to protect ICs from the TID effects, this paper proposes a radiation-hardening of the logic circuit(D-latch) which used for the data synchronization and the clock division in the ICs design. The radiation-hardening technology in the logic device(NAND) that constitutes the proposed RH(Radiation-hardened) D-latch is structurally more advantageous than the conventional technologies in that it keeps the device characteristics of the commercial process. Because of this, the unit cell based design of the RH logic device is possible, which makes it easier to design RH ICs, including digital logic circuits, and reduce the time and cost required in RH circuit design. In this paper, we design and modeling the structure of RH D-latch based on commercial $0.35{\mu}m$ CMOS process using Silvaco's TCAD 3D tool. As a result of verifying the radiation characteristics by applying the radiation-damage M&S (Modeling&Simulation) technique, we have confirmed the radiation-damage of the standard D-latch and the RH performance of the proposed D-latch by the TID effects.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제54권12호
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• pp.4422-4430
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• 2022

Studying the effects of gamma radiation on the instrumentation and control (I&C) system of a nuclear power plant is critical to the successful and reliable operation of the plant. In the accidental scenario, the adverse environment of ionizing radiation affects the performance of the I&C system and it leads to inaccurate and incomprehensible results. This paper reports the effects of gamma radiation on the AT89C51RD2, a commercial-off-the-shelf 8-bit high-performance flash microcontroller. The microcontroller, selected for the device under test for this study is used in the remote terminal unit for a nuclear power plant. The custom circuits were made to test the microcontroller under different gamma doses using a ⁶⁰Co gamma source in both ex-situ and in-situ modes. The device was exposed to a maximum dose of 1.5 kGy. Under this hostile environment, the performance of the microcontroller was studied in terms of device current and voltage changes. It was observed that the microcontroller device can operate up to a total absorbed dose of approximately 0.6 kGy without any failure or degradation in its performance.

• Journal of Semiconductor Engineering
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• 제2권1호
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• pp.119-124
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• 2021

Along with the needs for feasibility in the field of space applications, interests in radiation-hardened electronics is growing rapidly. Gallium nitride (GaN)-based devices have been widely researched so far owing to superb radiation resistance. Among them, research on the most abundant protons in low earth orbit (LEO) is essential. In this paper, proton irradiation effects on parameter changes, degradation mechanism, and correlation with reliability of GaN-based devices are summarized.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제53권5호
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• pp.1483-1490
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• 2021

Many studies are undertaken into nuclear power plants (NPPs) in preparation for accidents exceeding design standards. In this paper, we analyze the applicability of various wireless communication technologies as accident countermeasures in different NPP environments. In particular, a commercial wireless communication module (WCM) is investigated by measuring leakage current and packet error rate (PER), which vary depending on the intensity of incident radiation on the module, by testing at a Co-60 gamma-ray irradiation facility. The experimental results show that the WCMs continued to operate after total doses of 940 and 1097 Gy, with PERs of 3.6% and 0.8%, when exposed to irradiation dose rates of 185 and 486 Gy/h, respectively. In short, the lower irradiation dose rate decreased the performance of WCMs more than the higher dose rate. In experiments comparing the two communication protocols of request/response and one-way, the WCMs survived up to 997 and 1177 Gy, with PERs of 2% and 0%, respectively. Since the request/response protocol uses both the transmitter and the receiver, while the one-way protocol uses only the transmitter, then the electronic system on the side of the receiver is more vulnerable to radiation effects. From our experiments, the tested module is expected to be used for design-based accidents (DBAs) of "Category A" type, and has confirmed the possibility of using wireless communication systems in NPPs.