Effects of Ionising Radiation on the Electromagnetic Immunity Behaviour of Integrated Circuits

In this paper, we analyse the impact of ionising radiation on the conducted electromagnetic immunity of integrated circuits (ICs). We use the direct power injection (DPI) method according to IEC 62132-4 to characterize the conducted electromagnetic immunity of our test IC at the VDD pin. In addition to measuring the electromagnetic immunity, we irradiate the IC with X-rays. The irradiation process is carried out up to a dose of 1.5Mrad using a high power X-ray radiation source. The electromagnetic immunity characteristic of the IC is determined for the unirradiated IC and for doses of 0.5Mrad, 1.0Mrad and 1.5Mrad. We present measurement results demonstrating a low but significant impact of ionising radiation on the conducted electromagnetic immunity behaviour of our test IC. With increasing radiation dose, our IC is getting more robust towards radio frequency interference (RFI) at the VDD pin.