How to Consider SEEs When Designing a SiGe Low-Noise Amplifier - An Overview

The application of radiation-hardening by design (RHBD) to the low-noise amplifier (LNA) in an RF communications receiver has promise for improving data fidelity in applications subject to single-event effects (SEEs). In order to overcome the challenges of empirically modeling single-event-transient (SET) propagation in RF receivers, calibrated technology computer-aided design (TCAD) is used to perform mixed-mode simulations and identify viable RHBD approaches for SiGe cascode LNAs. Example results at X-band (8–12 GHz) are used to demonstrate these approaches. Finally, the findings in the present work are organized into a proposed radiation-hardening design flow to aid circuit and system engineers who wish to consider single-event-upset (SEU) rates in the performance of their LNAs.