Single event burnout of power MOSFETs caused by nuclear reactions with heavy ions

Single event burnout (SEB) phenomenon of power MOSFETs caused by nuclear reactions with incident heavy ions has been probed experimentally. 520MeV Kr and 3536MeV Xe ions having the same LET were used as incident ions for the experiment. The observed SEB threshold voltage was quite different for both ions. Detailed analysis revealed that the Xe ions can produce excess charge as a result of nuclear reactions with Si atoms. The result suggests that usual SEB immunity test as a function of LET is not adequate for high voltage devices that have much larger sensitive volume.