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Report

Teaser, summary, work performed and final results

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - RADSAGA (RADiation and reliability challenges for electronics used in Space, Avionics, on the Ground and at Accelerators)

Teaser

Summary

Microelectronic components and systems are present in every-day life applications such as computing, transport and communication. The rapid advancement of the related technologies, aiming at faster, smaller and lower power products, is often linked to an enhanced sensitivity to radiation effect. So far mainly limited to space applications, such effects are an increasing concern for ground-level applications.

RADSAGA (â€œRADiation and Reliability Challenges for Electronics used in Space, Aviation, on the Ground and at Acceleratorsâ€) addresses the challenge of ensuring a reliable operation of electronic systems in a broad range of environments and applications. The main objective of the project is to invest in the training of Early Stage Researchers who will collaborate with the main experts in the field in Europe to improve design and qualification methodologies that will, in a cost and time efficient manner, help institutes and companies deliver reliable products.

Therefore, RADSAGA aims, through its rich network of academic, research and industrial partners, to tackle the emerging needs of extending the understanding of radiation effects to electronics, nowadays developed mainly for critical usage in space, to the broader range and complexity of effects and applications. In order to do so, the first part of the project focuses on investigating the radiation fields both in operational and experimental scenarios and establishing a coherent link between them.

The second part of the project is devoted to the challenges of radiation effects at a component level, both in the case of commercially available products, as well as customized radiation-tolerant developments. For the latter case, the individual ESR projects focused on design will profit from the progress in the projects developing computing tools to optimize the response of the components to radiation.

Moreover, in its third part, RADSAGA addresses the challenges related to radiation effects from a system point of view. Though not included in the standard procedures, tests are in practice performed at system level in order to reduce the cost and time associated to the qualification. However, there are significant difficulties related to investigating the representativeness of the experimental environment and conditions, and establishing the link between observations at system and component level behaviour. The problem is approached from a combined top/down and bottom/up methodology, and will profit from the availability of the CHARM facility at CERN.

RADSAGA will harmonize the technical and scientific results and integrate them in the projectâ€™s key outcome: a handbook of radiation effects testing which will serve the institutes and industry as guidelines to efficiently design and qualify electronic components and systems for high-reliability applications.

Work performed

The RADSAGA Innovative Training Network started in March 2017. Currently starting its third year of existence, it has advanced both in the ESRs training and personal development as well as in its technical and scientific objectives related to an enhanced understanding of radiation effects on emerging complex components and systems.

The RADSAGA training program has been organised in the form of network-wide events as well as of individual training sessions to develop specific skills. A wide range of topics will be covered in two main axes: personal skill consolidation and improvement and specific technical knowledge development on key topics for RADSAGA.

After the initial RADSAGA training (October 2017) and workshop (March 2018), the network-wide training events of the Jyvaskyla and Saint Etienne Summer Schools in 2018 provided a deeper insight into the basic mechanisms involved in radiation effects to electronics, their evolution with technology scaling, and the specificities of radiation effects in photonics and optoelectronics.

The ESRs have already completed an impressive amount of studies, concept designs and system testing and in several cases their work has already led to scientific publications and contributions in international conferences.

The RADSAGA scientific program is divided into four main Work Packages (WP).
The main technical and scientific achievements in the scope of WP1 are related to the development of a robust, low cost radiation detector that will provide a standardized and user-friendly means of measuring the radiation environment in a broad range of experimental facilities
In WP2, critical progress has been accomplished in the design of radiation-hard components and the identification of strategic industrial partners for their implementation. Moreover, a computational approach has been proposed to simulate the sensitivity to soft errors of highly integrated technologies.
In the scope of WP3 and WP4, significant advancement has been made in the definition of system tests based on devices to be qualified also at component level. A subset of these systems was already tested in the CHARM facility in July 2018, and the results will contribute to the development of the handbook aimed at optimizing and standardizing such type of qualification.

Final results

The RADSAGA ITN has an important impact on the training and individual experience of the ESRs.

Most of the ESRs have familiarised with new cultures (in their home institute, during the training and during the secondment periods) and have already benefited from an intensive scientific and academic experience. As a key outcome, RADSAGA will have formed 15 highly prepared professionals fully capable of developing their activities in research and/or industry in the interdisciplinary fields of radiation effects to electronics and electronic reliability.

Moreover, the outcome of the RADSAGA project, in the form of a methodology to improve and harmonize the design and qualification of electronic components and systems for a broad range of environments and applications, will materialize in a handbook that will serve as guidelines to agencies, institutes and industry; and which will have as an impact an enhancement of the equipment reliability in addition to a reduction in the qualification costs. The system level tests carried out in the scope of RADSAGA at the CHARM facility during the 2018 operation have provided essential input to the development of such guidelines.
RADSAGA has also been very active in terms for outreach and dissemination. The ESRs and some supervisors participated in a broad variety of events to promote the RADSAGA activities explained in the previous paragraphs.