BUSFET -- A radiation-hardened SOI transistor

The total-dose hardness of SOI technology is limited by radiation-induced charge trapping in gate, field, and SOI buried oxides. Charge trapping in the buried oxide can lead to back-channel leakage and makes hardening SOI transistors more challenging than hardening bulk-silicon transistors. Two avenues for hardening the back-channel are (1) to use specially prepared SOI buried oxides that reduce the net amount of trapped positive charge or (2) to design transistors that are less sensitive to the effects of trapped charge in the buried oxide. In this work, the authors propose a partially-depleted SOI transistor structure for mitigating the effects of trapped charge in the buried oxide on radiation hardness. They call this structure the BUSFET--Body Under Source FET. The BUSFET utilizes a shallow source and a deep drain. As a result, the silicon depletion region at the back channel caused by radiation-induced charge trapping in the buried oxide does not form a conducting path between source and drain. Thus, the BUSFET structure design can significantly reduce radiation-induced back-channel leakage without using specially prepared buried oxides. Total dose hardness is achieved without degrading the intrinsic SEU or dose rate hardness of SOI technology. The effectiveness of the BUSFET structure for reducing total-dose back-channel leakage depends on several variables, including the top silicon film thickness and doping concentration, and the depth of the source. 3-D simulations show that for a body doping concentration of 1018 cm-3, a drain bias of 3 V, and a source depth of 90 nm, a silicon film thickness of 180 nm is sufficient to almost completely eliminate radiation-induced back-channel leakage. However, for a doping concentration of 3 x 1017 cm-3, a thicker silicon film (300 nm) must be used