Radiation Performance of Commercial SiGe HBT BiCMOS High Speed Operational Amplifiers

We present results on heavy-ion and proton irradiations for commercial SiGe BiCMOS differential amplifiers: LTC6400-20 from Linear Technology and THS4304 from Texas Instruments. We found that the devices are susceptible to heavy-ion-induced SETs, with relatively low LET thresholds (LETth). The LTC6400 exhibits a LETth < 7.4 MeV•cm2/mg for frequencies ranging from 10 to 1000 MHz. The THS4304 exhibits a LETth < 4.4 MeV•cm2/mg at 200 MHz; the LETth decreases with increasing frequency. The SET cross-sections increase with increasing operating frequency. The significance of the SETs also increases with frequency. The SETs at 1000 MHz erase several signal cycles. We also found that the LTC6400 is relatively robust against 198 and 54 MeV protons. We did not observe angular sensitivity from the proton irradiations.