Single Event Effects on a Highly Integrated and RF Agile Wideband Transceiver Device

This paper presents the single event effects (SEE) test results of the latest highly integrated and radio frequency (RF) agile wideband transceiver, namely the Analog Devices ADRV9009. The test was performed under heavy-ion irradiation. The ADRV9009 is a very complex device which combines digital, analog and RF circuits. The test results revealed that multiple kinds of SEE occur on all circuit levels. Destructive events, driven by single event latchups were observed at Krypton and Xenon with an LET of 40.9 <tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">$\text{MeV} \cdot \text{cm}^{2} / \text{mg}$</tex> and <tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">$69.3 \text{MeV} \cdot \text{cm}^{2} / \text{mg}$</tex> respectively. Soft errors like single event upsets in the configuration memory, the integrated ARM processor and signal disruption and connection losses in the RF domain were observed down to a LET of <tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">$7.17 \text{MeV} \cdot \text{cm}^{2} / \text{mg}$</tex>.