Radiation-hardened gate-around n-MOSFET structure for radiation-tolerant application-specific integrated circuits

To overcome the total ionizing dose effect on an n-type metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistor (n-MOSFET), we designed a radiation-hardened gate-around n-MOSFET structure and evaluated it through a radiation-exposure experiment. Each test device was fabricated in a commercial 0.35-micron complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) process. The fabricated devices were evaluated under a total dose of 1 Mrad (Si) at a dose rate of 250 krad/h to obtain very high reliability for space electronics. The experimental results showed that the gate-around n-MOSFET structure had very good performance against 1 Mrad (Si) of gamma radiation, while the conventional n-MOSFET experienced a considerable amount of radiation-induced leakage current. Furthermore, a source follower designed with the gate-around transistor worked properly at 1 Mrad (Si) of gamma radiation while a source follower designed with the conventional n-MOSFET lost its functionality.