Total Ionizing Dose Effects on a COTS Microcontroller

For robotic applications in the nuclear industry, the radiation effect on electronic devices plays an important part. As microcontroller has been widely adopted in the field of automation, the space for research of radiation effects on such circuits needs to be filled. A minimum system board implemented with a 180nm commercial microcontroller unit has been designed. To monitor the operation condition of the system board, an in-situ test method, consisting of three functional check approaches, has been developed as well. Both biased and unbiased irradiation tests have been conducted. The failure model of the demonstrated system board has been investigated. Comparisons between the unbiased and biased tests were made. A potential dose rate dependence phenomenon was noticed.