A Radiation-Tolerant CML Voltage Controlled Oscillator in 28nm CMOS FDSOI

Abstract

Ring oscillators have been one of the main choices for high-frequency electronic devices since this kind of oscillators are able to generate a wide tuning range. However, they present a high sensitivity to single event effects in radiation environments. As a hardening technique, an improved ring-oscillator based on the current mode logic was developed. In this circuit the delay of each stage of the oscillator and subsequently the oscillation frequency can be determined by the value of the passive elements (resistors and capacitors) rather than the properties of the active components, The design was designed and simulated in a 28 nm CMOS FDSOI technology, the simulation results reveal that an improvement in the sensitivity of the system to SEE is obtained without affecting the tuning range or increasing the phase noise, besides the increased switching speed and reduced leakage current by the advanced FDSOI technology.