Total dose and transient radiation effects on GaAs MMICs

To elucidate the effects of radiation on GaAs monolithic microwave integrated circuits (MMICs), radiation-induced changes in DC parameters of test FETs and in the measured microwave performance of MMICs were compared. Changes in material parameters determined from the DC results were used to model the observed microwave performance degradation. In addition, the effect of accumulated radiation damage in MMICs was studied in terms of the amplifier response to transient radiation pulses. The effect of 1-MeV electron irradiation on microwave response and transient radiation pulse response was measured in 0.5- to 12.5-GHz distributed amplifiers (ion-implanted) and in 28-GHz power amplifiers (with epitaxially grown active layers)