A Radiation-Hardened 15–22-GHz Frequency Synthesizer in 22-nm FinFET

Abstract

High-speed radiation-hardened frequency synthe- sizers are a key block in spaceborne communications systems. This article presents a 15–22-GHz radiation-hardened phase- locked loop (PLL) designed in a 22-nm FinFET process with hardening techniques for single-event upset (SEU) and total ionizing dose (TID) implemented in all key PLL blocks. Electri- cal performance tradeoffs arising from the radiation-hardening techniques are discussed and experimentally verified. The PLL achieves a figure of merit (FoM) of −240.89 dB at 15 GHz with −64-dBc spur levels. Moreover, heavy-ion testing performed at the Texas A&M Cyclotron Institute, College Station, TX, USA, validated the PLL’s resilience to SEU across a linear energy transfer (LET) range from 10 to 70 MeV·cm 2/mg, while TID testing performed at the Texas A&M TRIGA reactor up to 300 krad confirmed the PLL’s robustness to total dose effects.