Silicon Carbide Integrated Circuits for Extreme Environment Operation: High Radiation and High Temperature

To extend the survivability of high temperature extreme environment missions, we propose to design, fabricate and test silicon carbide integrated circuits that are radiation tolerant and high temperature operation capable. Bulk silicon electronics mostly cease to operate properly at temperatures above the 150C to 200C range due to high off-state leakage. The Silicon-On-Insulator version pushes this limit further to 300C; however, the Venus surface exploration systems and gas giant probes require electronics that can operate above this temperature. A solution for high temperature electronics is the use of devices fabricated using wide bandgap semiconductors. Silicon carbide as being the most mature wide bandgap technology and shown to operate at temperature as high as 500-600C offers alternative device and circuit solutions for high temperature electronics. To this end, CoolCAD has the expertise to design, layout and fabricate silicon carbide integrated circuits to address this need, and extend the useful lifetime of vessels and probes in extreme environments.