The experience of starting-up a radiation test at the 18MeV cyclotron in the Spanish National Accelerators Center

Space application integrated circuits have large and complex validation process. One of the most expensive stage is the radiation test. There are few facilities qualified to satisfy the requirements of standards. Low power accelerators are used to simplify the validation process, because they usually have beam time, lower costs, and flexibility to access. As prevalidation tools they can provide valuable information about the circuit behavior. In this paper the first experience of irradiation to a silicon device during its execution in the Spanish National Accelerator Center is described. A radiation test using a semi-custom programmable (CPLD) commercial technology has been set-up. During this experience the CPLD has been irradiated with protons at 18 MeV while the device was running with a custom design. Results obtained are described and the damage over the device has been understood as total ionization dose.