Hardening Electronics to Electromagnetic Threats

Electronic equipment, especially communication equipment, is extremely vulnerable to various forms of electromagnetic radiation whether natural or man-made due to minimal shielding and high sensitivity to radio waves. An ideal transient hardening device would limit the harmful energy as it enters the circuitry by minimizing the over-voltage. It would have to respond very fast and be able to handle very high currents. Ideally it would be a device on the integrated circuit itself. Chalcogenide switching devices have been shown to suppress EMP and HPM transients in the past as discrete devices. This proposal is the first step in developing a process for integrating such a device onto integrated circuits. Phase I will investigate electrodes, improved chalcogenide materials, and structures for threshold voltage levels and current handling capacity. In Phase II optimized devices will be tested at BAE Systems in electronic system configurations for improved transient suppression. Also, Ovonyx will develop a process compatible with typical CMOS back-end processes for integration into IC manufacturing processes, such as for BAE Systems’ radiation-hardened circuits and will demonstrate improved EMP protection levels.