"Comm/Rad-Pak": A Package for Commercial Microelectronic Chips for use in Space Radiation

Full Circle Research, Inc. proposed a program to develop a package for microelectronic integrated circuits which will shield these devices against the deleterious effects of space radiation. Such a package would permit spacecraft designers to use commercial ICs in applications where, previously, only more expensive military technology radiation hardened chips could be used. Previous attempts to develop such packages have assumed a wartime environment in which the radiation belts surrounding the earth would have been "pumped up" by exoatmospheric nuclear bursts, resulting in electron spectra much harder than the natural radiation environment. Also, secondary radiation generated by nuclear interactions between protons and the shield material was neglected. These conditions, in addition to the changes in IC vulnerability to space radiation brought about by the advance in IC technology since the original work was done, combine to make the earlier shielded packages obsolete. The program proposed herein will, during Phase I, use recent advanced on space radiation effects on micro-electronics to modify the design equations for package-level shielding, and develop new package designs using these modified equations. Then, during Phase II, prototypes implementing these designs will be fabricated and tested to demonstrate their ability to shield against ionizing radiation without increasing to an unacceptable extent single event upsets caused by cosmic rays and Van Allen belt radiation. Finally, during Phase III, production of these packages will begin, aimed at use in commercial satellite systems such as IRIDIUM.