Heavy ion radiation effects on CMOS image sensors

The space environment is hostile to most integrated electronic components, such as those for navigation, communication, data processing functions in satellites and various space missions. Radiation such as gamma-rays, x-rays, energetic electrons, protons, neutrons and ions of various kinds are prevalent in space and have the potential to cause various transient or fatal device damages. In addition, trends toward micro- and nano-satellites and use of off-the-shelf components have increased the potential for damage to the electronic components. Understanding the effects of such radiation environment is vital for space missions and satellite operations.; In the past four decades, micro-electronic device damage due to gamma-ray, energetic protons, neutrons and highly energetic heavy ions have been studied. In this work the effects of relatively low energy ions on standard 0.35micron devices is explored. The range of these ions coincides with surface and active regions of the devices and such energy range can serve as accelerated aging test for CMOS devices. Simulation work of the heavy ion damage on structure was conducted to predict the possible damage on the devices. The vulnerability of different processing structures to the damage is simulated through comparison of the 0.35mum and 0.18mum processing technologies. SPICE modeling of CMOS image sensor to low energy heavy ions damage is constructed. This is supported by experimental work with F ion irradiation of microelectronic devices for CMOS active pixel sensors. Standard 0.35-micron fabricated devices were bombarded with 17MeV F+7 generated at the mass spectrometer facility of the IsoTrace laboratory of the University of Toronto.