Apparatuses and methods using current-starved ring oscillator biased by floating gate transistors with a variety of applications including as a power-free radiation detector or silicon age determination or odometer system

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10833658-B2
Application number	US-201816235228-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Dec 28, 2018
Priority date	Dec 29, 2017
Publication date	Nov 10, 2020
Grant date	Nov 10, 2020

Abstract

Apparatuses and methods using current-starved ring oscillator biased by floating gate transistors with a variety of applications including as a power-free radiation detector or silicon age determination or odometer system.

First claim

The invention claimed is:

1. A method of detecting radiation comprising:
providing a first device from a plurality of devices in a common wafer lot comprising a radiation detector system comprising a current-starved ring oscillator biased by floating gate transistors
irradiating the first device and generating measurement data comprising measured floating gate current starved (FGCS) frequency vs TID data of first device to create a lookup table containing the measurement data; and
reading FGCS frequency in other said plurality of devices in the common wafer lot and using the lookup table to convert frequency degradation to accumulated total ionizing dose.

2. A method of detecting radiation comprising:
providing a first device from a plurality of devices in a common wafer lot comprising a radiation detector system comprising a current-starved ring oscillator biased by floating gate transistors, wherein the plurality of devices further comprises a second device provided as a reference device that comprises a reference circuit;
irradiating the first device and generating measurement data comprising measured floating gate current starved (FGCS) frequency vs TID data of the first device to create a lookup table containing the measurement data; and
reading FGCS frequency in at least the second device and using the lookup table to convert frequency degradation to accumulated total ionizing dose, wherein the FGCS to reference frequency comparison is calculated using a beat frequency circuit or by using two on-chip counters' clocked with a same reference clock, wherein the comparison to help cancel out environmental effects like temperature and system effects such as supply voltage variations.

3. A method of detecting aging of an electrical circuit that includes a silicon structure comprising:
providing an electrical circuit age detection system comprising a current-starved ring oscillator biased by floating gate transistors;
disposing the electrical circuit age detection system in an environment; and
determining age of at least one section of an electrical circuit that includes a silicon structure using the electrical circuit age detection system.

Assignees

• Us Navy

Inventors

• Kay Matthew J
• Duncan Adam
• Gadlage Matthew
• Roach Austin H
• Berger Glenn

Classifications

• G01T1/245

  using memory cells · CPC title

• H03K3/0315 Primary

  Ring oscillators · CPC title

• G01T1/246

  utilizing latent read-out, e.g. charge stored and read-out later · CPC title