Radiation Hardened by Design vs HARDSIL® Technology

Patrice Parris, Ph.D., Chief Technology Officer, VORAGO Technologies

May 7, 2024

Radiation Hardening Techniques for Semiconductors: What You Need to Know

In the aerospace and defense industries, the reliability of semiconductors and electronic components is non-negotiable. For example, microcontroller units (MCUs) that are used for mission critical applications must operate dependably under extreme conditions, including high radiation environments.

Space radiation and other extreme conditions can have a catastrophic effect on an integrated circuit (IC). Multiple methods, commonly referred to as radiation hardening, are used to ensure the protection of ICs, including microcontrollers. These methods are usually classified as either Radiation Hardened by Design (RHBD) or Radiation Hardened by Process (RHBP). Both RHBD and RHBP involve designing chips to be inherently resistant to radiation effects right from the initial design phase. Understanding the differences between RHBD and RHBP can help guide your selection in a microcontroller vendor.

What is Radiation Hardening for Semiconductors?

Radiation hardening for semiconductors refers to the process of designing and manufacturing these electronic components to withstand and operate reliably in environments with high levels of ionizing radiation. Radiation, such as gamma rays, X-rays, and cosmic rays, can disrupt the operation of semiconductor devices by causing ionization and damaging their electronic components. Radiation hardening techniques aim to mitigate the effects of radiation on semiconductors to ensure the continued functionality and reliability of electronic systems.

Who Does Radiation Hardening Benefit?

Radiation hardening of semiconductors is beneficial across a range of industries and applications, particularly in aerospace, military, and space applications where exposure to radiation is common. In these industries, rad hard MCUs are essential to a variety of applications that deploy local intelligence in a subsystem.

What is Radiation Hardening by Design (RHBD)?

The RHBD approach typically begins by altering the structure of the standard foundry devices and then couples that with architectural changes that enhance radiation tolerance to create a rad-tolerant or rad-hard microcontroller.

What is Radiation Hardening by Process (RHBP)?

RHBP involves the use of a specific manufacturing flow and/or a substrate to protect the foundry devices from radiation effects.

What is HARDSIL® Technology?

HARDSIL® is a patented technology designed to enhance the robustness of electronic components through additional process steps compatible with standard fabrication equipment. This innovation enables the components to perform reliably in extreme environments without the need for specialized design libraries, design flows, or any process modifications. Instead, it leverages existing intellectual property, design libraries, and workflows, thereby integrating radiation hardening capabilities more seamlessly into standard semiconductor integrated circuit production.

HARDSIL® creates protective structures around the circuit components as opposed to trying to change the circuit components themselves to make them radiation-hardened, which is commonly the approach in RHBD. HARDSIL® creates highly conductive regions which are usually connected to ground and do not incur power and area penalties.

Unlike RHBD methods, HARDSIL® achieves rad-hard performance without the necessity of incorporating extra structures into the semiconductor design leading to a decrease in costs and power consumption, improved performance, and a more compact die size.

HARDSIL® is implemented at the foundry level and enables VORAGO and users of its technology to design and produce radiation-hardened processors and microcontrollers faster and more cost-effectively than by other means. VORAGO itself has used HARDSIL® to create radiation-hardened MCUs with proven flight heritage in missions of various flight profiles.

Advantages of HARDSIL®

HARDSIL® is a patented technology which is cost-effective to install in a baseline process. HARDSIL® re-uses existing baseline design collateral and foundry intellectual property (IP) to harden new IC designs as well as existing designs. It hardens existing designs without the expense of re-design. The resulting rad-hard ICs do not suffer area, power and design complexity penalties in comparison to the commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) version of the same IC while offering the same electrical performance. This is in contrast to the area, power and design time penalties often incurred with RHBD. VORAGO has used HARDSIL® to create rad-hard MCUs with proven flight heritage in extreme environment operation. HARDSIL® is well suited for most space and defense applications, and can prove especially advantageous where cost, flexibility, and time-to-market are critical considerations.

HARDSIL® Rad-Hard MCUs

VORAGO’s portfolio of Arm® Cortex-M0 and M4 microcontrollers enable mission-critical technology to support the most demanding space applications, from heavy computing needs such as edge, to embedded controllers and I/O, while our extreme temperature solutions are ideal for industrial applications. VORAGO rad hard MCUs achieve “best in class” radiation performance with Total Ionizing Dose (TID) greater than 300 krad(Si) and Single-Event Latchup (SEL) LET threshold >110 MeVcm²/mg @ T=125°C.

To request more information on HARDSIL® and VORAGO’s rad hard MCUs, contact us.