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Correlation of Heavy-Ion and Laser Testing on a DC/DC PWM Controller

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Abstract

Pulsed laser and heavy-ion experiments were carried out on a commercial-off-the-shelf DC/DC pulse width modulation controller to study the equivalent laser Linear Energy Transfer (LET) at wavelengths of 750 nm, 800 nm, 850 nm and 920 nm. The laser experiments showed that the shorter wavelength laser has smaller threshold energy to generate single-event transient pulses. The cross-sections versus heavy-ion LET and laser energy per pulse were obtained and correlated. The heavy-ion and laser cross-sections fit well considering the effects of metal layers on the chip. The results of this research facilitate the future pulsed laser testing by providing explicit coefficients to evaluate the equivalent laser LET, which can be used to replace costly heavy-ion testing.

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Acknowledgment

The authors would like to thank Saskatchewan Structural Science Center (SSSC) for providing the laser facility and services for the laser experiments. The authors are also grateful that CMC Microsystems provided the simulation tools for the research.

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Correspondence to Y. Ren.

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Responsible Editor: V. D. Agrawal

Manuscript received February 15, 2013. This work was supported in part by Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), the Cisco Systems Inc. and Intersil Inc.

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Ren, Y., Shi, ST., Chen, L. et al. Correlation of Heavy-Ion and Laser Testing on a DC/DC PWM Controller. J Electron Test 29, 609–616 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10836-013-5379-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10836-013-5379-7

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