Abstract
In the technologic era in which we are living, reliability is a crucial aspect in every technology area. From aviation to cars, engineers need reliable systems that fulfill the task they are given to. However, reliability issues are related to different conditions and then every condition has to be fully understood in order to increase the reliability of the system. Radiation is one of these. Radiation has been discovered in the XVIII century and since then has been studied for its positive and negative effects. At the same time, new technologies have emerged. For instance, electronic components have been started to be developed in the ‘50s and nowadays are the cornerstone of our modern society. They are used in an impressive variety of field, from appliances to satellites. Clearly, the more the system is crucial, the more reliability is a major concern. From ground, to space, to aviation, radiation poses a major threat to electronic components. Thus, investigation of radiation effects and their impact on electronic devices has an important role on their reliability. One of this effect is Single Event Latchup (SEL), which is a potential catastrophic condition that affects CMOS technology. SEL is known since the ‘60s and it has been studied since then, because of the important role that CMOS components have assumed in the integrated circuit market. It is a destructive effect and as any other radiation effect, Single Event Latchup sensitivity depends on different parameters. So, the goals that we set for this work are to investigate the effects of specifics design parameters on SEL sensitivity and to identify a method to predict SEL.The first part of this scope has been addressed by investigation of the effects of specific design parameters on SEL sensitivity. The chosen parameters were doping profile, anode to cathode spacing and well and substrate taps placement. In addition, we have investigated the effect of temperature, which is a well-known key parameter for SEL sensitivity, in combination with the variation of the others parameters. TCAD tools have been used, by performing 2D simulations of a NPNP structure using Sentaurus Synopsys and ECORCE.On the other hand, two methods to predict SEL have been explored. The first method relies on the dynamic of SEL. By using TCAD simulations, we have identified the steps that lead to SEL. Then, these steps have been used to develop a modeling circuit in SPICE, in order to use it for prediction. With the second method, we have analyzed a possible model to predict SEL considering only the charge collected and deposited in the device, by finding a correlation between the deposited charge and the occurrence of SEL.