Transient radiation effects in several types of LDO

Abstract

several types of Low drop-out (LDO) regulator, manufactured in different technologies, are irradiated in the transient radiation environment. The experimental results show that outputs of all of LDOs are disrupted when irradiated. For the LDO manufactured in the complimentary metal-oxide -semiconductor (CMOS) technology, latch up (LU) occurs at the lower dose rate due to the parasitical PNPN structure, and the output voltage drops to zero. For the LDOs manufactured in the bipolar technology, if based on the two bipolar junction transistors (BJTs) band gap reference source, the output voltages are pulled up to the higher levels. If based on the three BJTs band gap reference source, the output voltages are pulled down to the lower levels. However, the output voltage disturbances of the bipolar LDOs recover in several micro minutes. In addition, different types of load result in different radiation responses of LDOs.