Export Administration Regulations (EAR) and Radiation Tolerant Microelectronics

Abstract

Sandia National Laboratories was asked to provide a technical feasibility assessment on whether programmability is a viable means to address the radiation levels in the Export Administration Regulations (EAR). Most (if not all) modern Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor (CMOS) technologies will exceed at least one of the EAR radiation criteria inherently, there is no longer anything “special” about domestic parts or technologies that exceed EAR radiation criteria. A modern part today is not “designed” to exceed EAR criteria and in fact a part would need to be “specially designed” to fail to meet all of these criteria. And although it is possible to design a part to fail to meet the EAR radiation criteria in an unprogrammed state, such a part would be difficult to design in some technologies, may not achieve the ultimate radiation levels desired, would fail to meet core reliability principles, and may be unsuitable for high consequence applications.