A RADIATION-TOLERANT D FLIP-FLOP DESIGNED FOR LOW-VOLTAGE APPLICATIONS

Abstract

A radiation-hardened by design (RHBD) D flip-flop is presented that demonstrates a tolerance to radiation induced single-event upsets while maintaining desirable electrical performance characteristics over a wide range of supply voltages. The flip-flop is based on the unhardened Static Single-phased Contention Free Flip-Flop and maintains three characteristics of being static, single-phased, and contention free for robustness against Process/Voltage/Temperature variations in low voltage operation. The radiation robustness and electrical performance of the new RHBD D flip-flop design is then compared to the unhardened S2CFF, and a fully hardened DICE flip-flop design. These results demonstrate that this new flip-flop design has significant performance advantages over the DICE flip-flop and is much more hardened to radiation when compared to conventional flip-flop designs.