A Wide Temperature, Radiation Tolerant, CMOS-compatible Precision Voltage Reference for Extreme Environment Instrumentation Systems

Abstract

Many design techniques have been incorporated into modern CMOS design practices to improve radiation tolerance of integrated circuits. Annular-gate NMOS structures have been proven to be significantly more radiation tolerant than the standard straight-gate variety. Many circuits can be designed using the annular-gate NMOS and the inherently radiation tolerant PMOS. Band-gap reference circuits, however, typically require p-n junction diodes. These p-n junction diodes are the dominating factor in radiation degradation in band-gap reference circuits. This paper proposes a different approach to band-gap reference design to alleviate the radiation susceptibility presented by the p-n junction diodes.