1 Recent Radiation Test Results at JPL
This Bruce E. Pritchard, Member, ZEEE, Bemard G. Rax, and Steven S. McClure paper documents recent TID (including ELDRS) and proton damage test results obtained by JPL. Unusual test results, such as abnormally low or high failure levels or unusual failure or response mechanism, are emphasized.
Total ionizing dose (TID) evaluation results of low dose rate testing for NASA programs
Low dose rate radiation testing in the range of 0.01-0.20 rads(Si)/s has been performed at Goddard Space Flight Center on a wide variety of non-RH (rad-hard) part types in the last few years. This paper reports on recent test results of EEPROMs, Operational Amplifiers, Analog-to-Digital Converters (ADCs) and Digital-to-Analog Converters (DACs), and DC-DC converters. These results have shown that non-RH parts are suitable for many low earth orbiting satellites, where predicted mission total dose requirements may be in the range of 0.5-10 krads(Si). However, a careful characterization of non-RH parts should be performed to verify that the parts meet the requirements of their intended application in the projected mission radiation environment.
An evaluation of the radiation tolerance of a 32-bit microprocessor for space applications
A radiation evaluation was performed on the Intel MQ80386-20/B microprocessor to determine their total dose tolerance. Four parts were subjected to radiation exposures of 2.5, 5 and 7.5 krads(Si) at 0.01-0.02 rads(Si)/sec. Following this total dose exposure, the parts were annealed at 25/spl deg/C for 1200 hours in five annealing steps. After each radiation exposure and annealing step, the parts were tested according to the test conditions and specification limits in the manufacturer's data sheet. All four parts passed all electrical tests through the 5-krad(Si) irradiation. After 7.5 krads(Si), the parts failed all four functional tests and several output voltage tests. The parts continued to fail the functional tests and several output voltage tests throughout the subsequent annealing steps up to 1200 hours (cumulative) at 25/spl deg/C. No significant sensitivity to radiation was observed in any other test parameters. It is recommended that total dose radiation testing be performed on every flight lot of these parts, since any change in the manufacturing process can significantly affect the total dose tolerance. A comprehensive test vector set which can provide the highest fault coverage should be used during the radiation testing.