This article investigates the total ionizing dose (TID) degradation mechanisms of 16-nm bulk Si FinFETs at ultrahigh doses. n- and p-FinFETs with several channel lengths are irradiated up to 1 Grad(SiO ₂ ) and then annealed for 24 h at 100 °C. Irradiated devices show significant degradation in transconductance and OFF-state leakage currents with slight subthreshold stretch-out and negligible threshold voltage shifts. At doses up to 10 Mrad(SiO ₂ ), the TID response is dominated by positive trapped charges in the shallow trench isolation (STI). At ultrahigh doses approaching 1 Grad(SiO ₂ ), dc static measurements suggest generation of trapped charge at the STI/Si interface and/or at the corner between the STI and the gate dielectric. The TID sensitivity depends on the bias condition and channel length. Halo implantations fortuitously increase the radiation tolerance of short-channel FinFETs due to the increased channel doping caused by the overlap of the source and the drain halos. The worst degradation is found when a high electric field is applied to the gate during irradiation.

In the complex space radiation environment, space electronic devices are inevitably damaged by energetic particles, such as protons, leading to degradation of electrical performance. However, previous studies have rarely explored the effect of proton irradiation on the electrical properties of $\bm{\beta} $ -Ga $_{\text{2}}$ O $_{\text{3}}$ Schottky barrier diodes (SBDs), and the underlying mechanisms remain largely unexplored. This article investigates the effect of 300-MeV proton irradiation on the electrical properties of the $\bm{\beta} $ -Ga $_{\text{2}}$ O $_{\text{3}}$ SBD. The degradation mechanisms are evaluated through current–voltage ( I – V ), capacitance–voltage ( C – V ), and deep-level transient spectroscopy (DLTS) measurements. After 300-MeV proton irradiation with the influence of 1 $\times$ 10 $^{\text{13}}$ p/cm $^{\text{2}}$ , the SBD devices show significant reduc-tion in forward current density and breakdown voltage ( V $_{\text{\text{br}}}$ ). The degradation is related to the decrease in carrier concentration due to the generation of body defects in the epitaxial layer caused by proton irradiation. In addition, further DLTS measurement shows that the body defects induced by 300-MeV proton irradiation are deep energy level defects, energy level ( E $_{\textit{C}}$ – E $_{\textit{T}}$ ) increases from 0.758 to 1.345 eV, and the defect concentration increases from 1.08 $\times$ 10 $^{\text{13}}$ cm $^{-\text{3}}$ to 1.51 $\times$ 10 $^{\text{13}}$ cm $^{-\text{3}}$ .

This article investigates the fin- and finger-number dependence of the total ionizing dose (TID) degradation in 16-nm bulk Si FinFETs at ultrahigh doses. n- and p-FinFETs designed with different numbers of fins and fingers are irradiated up to 500 Mrad(SiO ₂ ) and then annealed for 24 h at 100 °C. The TID responses of nFinFETs are insensitive to the fin number, as dominated by border and interface trap generation in shallow trench isolation (STI) and/or gate oxide. However, pFinFETs show a visible fin-number dependence with worst tolerance of transistors with the smallest number of fins. The fin number dependence may be related to a larger charge trapping in STI located at the opposite lateral sides of the first and last fins. In addition, both n- and p-FinFETs exhibit an almost TID insensitivity to the finger number. During the design of integrated circuits, the TID tolerance of electronic systems can be enhanced by preferably using transistors with a higher number of fins than fingers.

Single-Event Burnout (SEB) can cause hard damage to devices, leading to permanent failure. However, previous studies have rarely explored the effects of high-energy proton irradiation-induced SEB in β-Ga2O3 Schottky Barrier Diode (SBD), and the underlying mechanisms remain largely unexplored. Experimental results indicate that the reverse bias voltage during irradiation is a critical factor influencing the failure of β-Ga2O3 SBD. Compared to 300 MeV proton irradiation without bias, the introduction of a 300 V reverse bias voltage results in a significant reduction in forward current density (JF). When the reverse bias voltage reaches 400 V or higher, the 300 MeV proton induces SEB in the device. The SEM image of the damaged region reveals that the irradiated device has “voids” formed due to the melting of the Ga2O3 material. Geant 4 and TCAD simulation results indicate that the burnout phenomenon is caused by the elevated lattice temperature inside the device, which results from the implantation of secondary particles under a high reverse bias voltage. As the reverse bias voltage increases, the maximum lattice temperature of β-Ga2O3 SBD also rises. When the reverse bias voltage is sufficiently high, the local lattice temperature inside the device reaches the melting point of Ga2O3 material, ultimately leading to SEB.

The influence of bias and temperature on total ionizing dose (TID) effects are studied for SiC MOSFETs. The TID degradations are manifested as the negative threshold voltage shift and leakage current increase. The radiation-induced positive trapped charge in gate oxide, but not the interface trap, is the main contributor to the degradation of SiC MOSFET under different bias and temperature conditions. The generation rate and trapping probability of radiation-induced holes under different bias conditions are different, resulting in differences in the severity of TID degradations. A positive gate bias leads to more radiation-induced hole generation in gate oxide, so worse degradations are observed under positive ON bias than the other biases. Whereas, when the gate bias voltage is too much high, the probability of radiation-induced holes being captured by trap centers decreases, which in turn leads to smaller degradation. A model considering the generation rate and trapping efficiency of radiation-induced hole is used to calculate the radiation-induced trapped charge density in gate oxide. Good agreement is achieved between the measured data and model calculation under different bias conditions. Low-temperature enhanced TID effect is observed for SiC MOSFETs, which is manifested as a larger negative threshold voltage shift at lower temperature. Temperature primarily affects the TID effect by altering the transport rate of holes in gate oxide. The slower transport rate of radiation-induced holes at lower temperatures, some additional holes cannot be removed from the gate oxide after irradiation, ultimately leading to greater threshold voltage shift.

This study investigated the effects of 5 MeV proton irradiation on the static electrical characteristics of Ni/β-Ga2O3 Schottky barrier diodes without and with NiO rings (SBDs and RSBDs), with a total irradiation fluence of 1 × 1013 cm−2. The results indicated that the proton irradiation damage decreased the current level of the SBDs and RSBDs due to the reduced net carrier concentration of β-Ga2O3 by about 50% other than the impact on the Schottky contact. On the one hand, the reduced net carrier concentration increased the on-resistance, resulting in a reduction in the forward saturation current by approximately one order of magnitude. On the other hand, because the leakage current mechanism was dominated by the Poole–Frenkel emission process and Fowler–Nordheim tunneling process, the reduced net carrier concentration degraded the electric fields in the irradiated SBDs and RSBDs, reducing the effect of the NiO guard ring and, meanwhile, leading to a lower leakage current after proton irradiation. In addition to being associated with the temperature-dependent current–voltage (I–V–T) results, the proton irradiation also suppressed the Poole–Frenkel emission process and increased the tunneling barrier height of SBDs and RSBDs. In this case, the breakdown voltage of the SBDs and RSBDs increased by approximately 2–4 times. In addition, the Technology Computer Aided Design simulations showed a reduced discrepancy between the peaks of the electric field of SBDs and RSBDs after irradiation, leading to the comparable leakage current of SBDs and RSBDs, which confirmed the weakening of the NiO guard ring’s effect.