Design and Analysis of Soft Error Rate in FET/CNTFET Based Radiation Hardened SRAM Cell

Aerospace equipages encounter potential radiation footprints through which soft errors occur in the memories onboard. Hence, robustness against radiation with reliability in memory cells is a crucial factor in aerospace electronic systems. This work proposes a novel Carbon nanotube field-effect transistor (CNTFET) in designing a robust memory cell to overcome these soft errors. Further, a petite driver circuit to test the SRAM cells which serve the purpose of precharge and sense amplifier, and has a reduction in threefold of transistor count is recommended. Additionally, analysis of robustness against radiation in varying memory cells is carried out using standard GPDK 90 nm, GPDK 45 nm, and 14 nm CNTFET. The reliability of memory cells depends on the critical charge of a device, and it is tested by striking an equivalent current charge of the cosmic ray’s linear energy transfer (LET) level. Also, the robustness of the memory cell is tested against the variation in process, voltage and temperature. Though CNTFET surges with high power consumption, it exhibits better noise margin and depleted access time. GPDK 45 nm has an average of 40% increase in SNM and 93% reduction of power compared to the 14 nm CNTFET with 96% of surge in write access time. Thus, the conventional MOSFET’s 45 nm node outperforms all the configurations in terms of static noise margin, power, and read delay which swaps with increased write access time.

Optical Design of a Quantitative Microvolume Nucleic Acid Spectrophotometer with Non-Optical Fiber and All Radiation-Hardened Lens Elements

The purity of the nucleic acid samples obtained by extraction/precipitation or adsorption chromatography must be verified with microvolume spectrophotometry to ensure a high success rate of the subsequent nucleic acid sequencing while exploring the trace rare nucleic acids in space exploration with in-situ life detection. This paper reports an optical design for a radiation-hardened quantitative microvolume spectrophotometer with all radiation-hardened lens elements for space exploration instruments by using a non-optical fiber optical path with radiation-hardened optical glass elements. The results showed that the mean absolute error rate of the measured standard ribonucleic acid samples at concentrations between 50 ng/μL and 2300 ng/μL was within 2% when compared with a LINKO LKU–6000 ultraviolet–visible spectrophotometer.

The Combined Effects of Cycling Endurance and TID on Floating Gate Memory Cells

In this paper, the combined effects of cycling endurance and radiation on floating gate memory cell are investigated in detail, the results indicate that: 1.The programmed flash cells with a prior appropriate number of program and erase cycling stress exhibit much smaller threshold voltage shift than their counterpart in response to radiation, which is mainly ascribed to the recombination of trapped electrons (introduced by cycling stress) and trapped holes (introduced by irradiation) in the oxide surrounding the floating gate; 2.The radiation induced transconductance degradation in prior cycled flash cell is more severe than those without cycling stress in both of the programmed state and erased state; 3. Radiation is more likely to induce interface generation in programmed state than in erased state. This paper will be useful in understanding the issues involved in cycling endurance and radiation effects as well as in designing radiation hardened floating gate memory cells.

Radiation-hardened property of single-walled carbon nanotube film-based field-effect transistors under low-energy proton irradiation

Strong C–C bonds, nanoscale cross-section and low atomic number make single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) a potential candidate material for integrated circuits (ICs) applied in outer space. However, very little work combines the simulation calculations with the electrical measurements of SWCNT field-effect transistors (FETs), which limits further understanding on the mechanisms of radiation effects. Here, SWCNT film-based FETs were fabricated to explore the total ionizing dose (TID) and displacement damage effect on the electrical performance under low-energy proton irradiation with different fluences up to 1 × 1015 p/cm2. Large negative shift of the threshold voltage and obvious decrease of the on-state current verified the TID effect caused in the oxide layer. The stability of the subthreshold swing and the off-state current reveals that the displacement damage caused in the CNT layer is not serious, which proves that the CNT film is radiation-hardened. Specially, according to the simulation, we found the displacement damage caused by protons is different in the source/drain contact area and channel area, leading to varying degrees of change for the contact resistance and sheet resistance. Having analyzed the simulation results and electrical measurements, we explained the low-energy proton irradiation mechanism of the CNT FETs, which is essential for the construction of radiation-hardened CNT film-based ICs for aircrafts.

A Suite of Robotic Solutions for Nuclear Waste Decommissioning

Dealing safely with nuclear waste is an imperative for the nuclear industry. Increasingly, robots are being developed to carry out complex tasks such as perceiving, grasping, cutting, and manipulating waste. Radioactive material can be sorted, and either stored safely or disposed of appropriately, entirely through the actions of remotely controlled robots. Radiological characterisation is also critical during the decommissioning of nuclear facilities. It involves the detection and labelling of radiation levels, waste materials, and contaminants, as well as determining other related parameters (e.g., thermal and chemical), with the data visualised as 3D scene models. This paper overviews work by researchers at the QMUL Centre for Advanced Robotics (ARQ), a partner in the UK EPSRC National Centre for Nuclear Robotics (NCNR), a consortium working on the development of radiation-hardened robots fit to handle nuclear waste. Three areas of nuclear-related research are covered here: human–robot interfaces for remote operations, sensor delivery, and intelligent robotic manipulation.