TCAD modeling of radiation effects in UDSM technologies

Project Introduction

The New Space-related activities involve fault-tolerant high-performance onboard computation and high-speed inter-satellite and orbit-to-Earth communications. Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine-learning (ML) tasks require the use of the ultra-deep submicron (UDSM) technologies for onboard electronic systems. FinFET and fully-depleted silicon-on-insulator (FD-SOI) technologies are promising candidates for the high-performance chips for space due to their attractive performance-power-area (PPA) characteristics.

At the same time, the extreme element scaling leads to high sensitivity to space radiation effects, mainly total-ionizing dose (TID) and Single-event-Effects (SEE), which are due to the charge collection in the sensitive nodes and charge trapping in isolating oxides and at the interface surfaces. FinFET technologies of 7-nm node level suffer not only the extremely low critical charge, but also the quasi-permanent effects like stuck bits. The sensitivity of FD-SOI technologies, in their turn, depends on the characteristics of the buried oxide (BOX) and Si/SiO₂ interfaces.

Radiation hardening by design requires accurate modeling of the processes in the oxides and at the interfaces. TCAD simulations became the industrial standard for such purposes.

In this Master Thesis/Internship, the student will develop TCAD-level models for accurate estimation of radiation-induced charge collection and trapping in UDSM technologies.

Main Tasks

Developing the TCAD models:

• Transistor-level modeling
• Charge collection and trapping modelling for gamma-, proton and heavy ion sources
• Calibration of the IV curves before and after irradiation
• TCAD model parameters extraction and their transferring to the SPICE-level simulations