Single-Event Transient Error Characterization of a Radiation-Hardened by Design 90 nm SerDes Transmitter Driver

The analysis and measurement of a radiation hardened by design 3.125 Gbps SerDes transmitter driver fabricated in commercial 90 nm CMOS is presented. The transmit driver is implemented in thick oxide 2.5 V devices. Testing and simulation of laser-induced single-event transients of a fabricated driver section are discussed. A highly-flexible data collection technique that allows post-processing of data for different error types and thresholds within a single data set is presented. This effort represents the first single-event effects measurement and analysis on a highly-scaled analog/RF CMOS circuit element operating at GHz frequencies. Sensitive nodes are identified through experiment and simulation.