Extreme Radiation Tolerance of High Temperature Solid-State Microelectronics

The nuclear and space industries require electronics with higher tolerance to radiation than that currently available. The recently developed 300°C electronics technology based on junction field-effect transistor (JFET) thick film hybrids was tested up to 10
⁹
rad (Si) in a gamma source and 10
¹⁶
neutrons/cm
²
. Circuits and individual components from this technology all survived this total dose although some devices required 1 h of annealing at 200°C or 300°C to regain functionality. This technology used with real time annealing should function to levels greater than 10
¹⁰
rad(Si) and 10
¹⁶
neutrons/cm
²
.