Quality assessment of transient response analysis method for detecting radiation-induced faults

Abstract

We evaluate the ability of transient response analysis method (TRAM), a simple test strategy proposed for filters, to detect deviations in circuit specifications beyond established limits. Particularly, we focus our attention on deviations produced by displacement damage in integrated resistors. This damage is produced by the impact of high-energy particles like the encountered in space environments. For this purpose, we formulate a simple deviation-fault model that takes into consideration the degradation addressed. Additionally, more transient response parameters are taken into account in order to improve the fault coverage. We adopt for our evaluations two typical second-order filters as cases of study. For these filters, the simulation results show that TRAM reaches excellent fault coverage for both filters, suggesting that its use in space applications is encouraging. © 2011 José Peralta et al.