This article presents a 10-bit radiation-hardened-by-design (RHBD) SAR analog-to-digital converter (ADC) operating at 50 MS/s, designed for aerospace applications in high-radiation environments. The system- and circuit-level redundancy techniques are implemented to mitigate radiation-induced errors and metastability. A novel split coarse/fine asynchronous SAR ADC architecture is proposed to provide system-level redundancy. At circuits level, single-event effects (SEEs) error detection and radiation-hardened techniques are implemented. Our co-designed SEE error detection scheme includes last-bit-cycle (LBC) detection following the LSB cycle and metastability detection (MD) via a ramp generator with a threshold trigger. This approach detects and corrects radiation-induced errors using a coarse/fine redundant algorithm. The radiation-hardened latch comparators and D flip-flops (DFFs) are incorporated to further mitigate SEEs. The prototype design is fabricated using TSMC 65-nm technology, with an ADC core area of 0.0875 mm² and a power consumption of 2.79 mW at a 1.2-V power supply. Postirradiation tests confirm functionality up to 100-krad(Si) total ionizing dose (TID) and demonstrate over 90% suppression of large SEE under laser testing.

This article presents a comprehensive analysis of the sensitivity of different switched-capacitor amplifier circuits to Single Event Transients (SETs). SETs are temporary variations in circuit output voltage or current caused by the interaction of heavy ions or high-energy protons with sensitive device nodes. The study focuses on three types of amplifier circuits commonly used in Multiplying Digital-to-Analog Converter (MDAC) stages of state-of-the-art pipelined ADCs: operational amplifier (Op-Amp) MDACs, comparator-based switched-capacitor (CBSC) MDACs, and ring amplifier (RAMP) based MDACs. By employing a TCAD-calibrated double exponential transient current pulse model, we simulate the SET responses resulting from heavy ion strike experiments on sensitive nodes of each MDAC type. Our analysis and simulations reveal the amplitude and recovery time of the output results for each MDAC type when subjected to SETs. Notably, we propose a novel radiation hardening solution: the parallel-auxiliary ring amplifier (PA-RAMP) structure, which demonstrates significantly better tolerance to SETs compared to other designs. This research not only contributes to the understanding of SET effects on analog switched-capacitor amplifier circuits but also introduces a cost-effective approach to mitigate these effects. As technology nodes scale down and circuits become more susceptible to SETs, the PA-RAMP structure offers a promising solution for radiation-hardened applications, enabling the use of scaling-friendly RAMPs with enhanced tolerance to SETs.

This manuscript focuses on studying the radiation response of the Commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) AD524CDZ operational amplifier. Total Ionizing Dose (TID) effects were tested using low-dose ⁶⁰Co irradiation. Single-Event Effect (SEE) sensitivity was studied on this operational amplifier using a 105 MeV proton beam. Additionally, further study of the SEE response was carried out using a Two-photon absorption laser to scan some sensitive sectors of the die. For this laser experiment, different gain setups and laser energies were employed to determine how the Single Event Transient (SET) response of the device was affected based on the test configuration. The results from the TID experiments revealed that the studied device remained functional after 100 krads (Si). Proton experiments revealed the studied device exhibited a high SET response with a maximum DC offset SET of about 1.5 V. Laser experiments demonstrated that there was a clear SET reduction when using 10× and 1000× gain setups.

This work presents StarRISC, which is a radiation-tolerant RISC-V ASIC microcontroller fabricated at the 22-nm FD SOI node. This device is a complete SoC which includes a 4-stage 32-bit core, a variety of peripherals, various I/Os, as well as 512 kB of on-chip SRAM. The device is hardened through several measures which include the use of ECC memory, automatic memory scrubbing, as well as the usage of custom designed radiation-hardened buffer and storage cells. Neither TMR nor software-level redundancy approaches are used in the design. Broad-beam testing results of the device show remarkable resilience to single event effects under alpha particles, protons, and heavy ions. As well, the results clearly show that the failure rate of the device is also dependent on the type of software that is running on the device during irradiation.

This manuscript investigates the use of different multi-loop voltage-controlled oscillator (VCO) structures to mitigate single event effects (SEE). The first approach is a three-stage fully differential cross-coupled ring oscillator, designed with current regulation biasing to enhance supply noise rejection. The second is a fully differential current-mode logic (CML) multi-path ring oscillator with coarse/fine control. Both structures were fabricated in 28-nm FDSOI technology. The cross-coupled ring VCO exhibits enhanced performance when using the high-current configuration, showing a phase noise of -80.1 dBc/Hz at 1 MHz offset from the center frequency of 1.49 GHz and a figure of merit (FoM) of 140. Moreover, the CML multi-path VCO stands out as a high-performance structure with -93.4 dBc/Hz phase noise measured at 1 MHz offset from the 1.42 GHz carrier frequency and a FoM of 151. Single event effects (SEE) and total ionizing dose (TID) responses were evaluated using a 105 MeV proton beam and ⁶⁰Co radiation, respectively. Experimental results demonstrated significant single event transient (SET) mitigation with both solutions, with the CML multi-path VCO exhibiting superior radiation tolerance with a maximum single event frequency transient (SEFT) of 4.2% and a maximum recovery time of 1.3 ns. Both designs showed high TID tolerance up to 300 krads.

Introducción: Se diseñó y fabricó una máquina prototipo de lanzamiento de pelotas de tenis de campo mediante el uso de ruedas giratorias y movimiento vertical controlado para un sistema de entrenamiento programado. Objetivos: Fabricar una máquina lanzadora de pelotas de tenis de campo, realizando pruebas de funcionalidad, verificando tipos de lanzamiento y velocidad de la pelota para asegurar su correcto funcionamiento. Metodología: El cumplimiento de los objetivos se sustentó en: método de revisión bibliográfica; método dialéctico, para tener un manejo de la información y método histórico, debido a que se utilizó fuentes anteriores que ayudaron a encontrar las principales características de este tipo de máquinas existentes en el mercado internacional. Resultados: Se obtuvo una máquina provista de ruedas que, al girar con una velocidad de 2750 rpm, consiguen transmitirle suficiente energía cinética a la pelota de tenis logrando el disparo con tres efectos de lanzamiento: Slice, Top Spin y Flat Spin, similar a un jugador promedio. Se alcanzó una velocidad lineal promedio de expulsión de la pelota de 59,38 km/h. Conclusiones: En las pruebas de funcionalidad mostraron una precisión de la máquina lanzadora de pelotas de tenis de un 93% con respecto al posicionamiento, además las pelotas cayeron en un diámetro máximo de 20 cm con relación a la posición final deseada.