Radiation Assessment of a 56-Gb/s Electro-Absorption Modulator Driver for Optical Intrasatellite Links

Kieran De Bruyn; Arijit Karmakar; Warre Geeroms; Michael Vanhoecke; Laurens Bogaert; Gunther Roelkens; Alan Naughton; David Mackey; Jeffrey Prinzie; Paul Leroux; Johan Bauwelinck

doi:10.1109/TNS.2025.3543637

Radiation Assessment of a 56-Gb/s Electro-Absorption Modulator Driver for Optical Intrasatellite Links

Kieran De Bruyn
, Arijit Karmakar
, Warre Geeroms
, Michael Vanhoecke
, Laurens Bogaert
, Gunther Roelkens
, Alan Naughton
, David Mackey
, Jeffrey Prinzie
, Paul Leroux
, Johan Bauwelinck

Ghent University
NVIDIA
MBRYONICS Ltd.
KU Leuven

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

4 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

This article presents a radiation-hardened-by-process 56-Gb/s electro-absorption modulator (EAM) driverdesigned in a 130-nm silicon germanium (SiGe) bipolar comple-mentary metal oxide semiconductor (BiCMOS) technology forapplication in optical intrasatellite links. Details of the driverarchitecture are provided, along with the electrical and opticalmeasurement setups used to evaluate its performance. To assessthe vulnerability of the driver against radiation exposure in thespace environment, samples were irradiated with X-rays up toa total accumulated dose of 1.2 Mrad(Si), simulating the effectsof total ionizing dose (TID) in orbit. Furthermore, heavy-ionexperiments corroborated the driver’s resilience to single-eventtransients (SETs) across a range of linear energy transfers (LETs)from 20 to 65.2 MeV cm²/mg, with a particle fluence of 1.2 ×10⁷ cm⁻². No single-event latchup (SEL) was observed in theirradiated samples during the heavy-ion exposure.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	1228-1236
Number of pages	9
Journal	IEEE Transactions on Nuclear Science
Volume	72
Issue number	4
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1109/TNS.2025.3543637
Publication status	Published - 2025
Externally published	Yes

Keywords

Analog integrated circuit (IC) design
optical transmitters
radiation effects
radiation hardening by process

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10.1109/TNS.2025.3543637

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@article{14b0ca5580e44833bb909123eebe5d5d,

title = "Radiation Assessment of a 56-Gb/s Electro-Absorption Modulator Driver for Optical Intrasatellite Links",

abstract = "This article presents a radiation-hardened-by-process 56-Gb/s electro-absorption modulator (EAM) driverdesigned in a 130-nm silicon germanium (SiGe) bipolar comple-mentary metal oxide semiconductor (BiCMOS) technology forapplication in optical intrasatellite links. Details of the driverarchitecture are provided, along with the electrical and opticalmeasurement setups used to evaluate its performance. To assessthe vulnerability of the driver against radiation exposure in thespace environment, samples were irradiated with X-rays up toa total accumulated dose of 1.2 Mrad(Si), simulating the effectsof total ionizing dose (TID) in orbit. Furthermore, heavy-ionexperiments corroborated the driver{\textquoteright}s resilience to single-eventtransients (SETs) across a range of linear energy transfers (LETs)from 20 to 65.2 MeV cm2/mg, with a particle fluence of 1.2 ×107 cm−2. No single-event latchup (SEL) was observed in theirradiated samples during the heavy-ion exposure.",

keywords = "Analog integrated circuit (IC) design, optical transmitters, radiation effects, radiation hardening by process",

author = "\{De Bruyn\}, Kieran and Arijit Karmakar and Warre Geeroms and Michael Vanhoecke and Laurens Bogaert and Gunther Roelkens and Alan Naughton and David Mackey and Jeffrey Prinzie and Paul Leroux and Johan Bauwelinck",

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year = "2025",

doi = "10.1109/TNS.2025.3543637",

language = "English",

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AU - De Bruyn, Kieran

AU - Karmakar, Arijit

AU - Geeroms, Warre

AU - Vanhoecke, Michael

AU - Bogaert, Laurens

AU - Roelkens, Gunther

AU - Naughton, Alan

AU - Mackey, David

AU - Prinzie, Jeffrey

AU - Leroux, Paul

AU - Bauwelinck, Johan

PY - 2025

Y1 - 2025

N2 - This article presents a radiation-hardened-by-process 56-Gb/s electro-absorption modulator (EAM) driverdesigned in a 130-nm silicon germanium (SiGe) bipolar comple-mentary metal oxide semiconductor (BiCMOS) technology forapplication in optical intrasatellite links. Details of the driverarchitecture are provided, along with the electrical and opticalmeasurement setups used to evaluate its performance. To assessthe vulnerability of the driver against radiation exposure in thespace environment, samples were irradiated with X-rays up toa total accumulated dose of 1.2 Mrad(Si), simulating the effectsof total ionizing dose (TID) in orbit. Furthermore, heavy-ionexperiments corroborated the driver’s resilience to single-eventtransients (SETs) across a range of linear energy transfers (LETs)from 20 to 65.2 MeV cm2/mg, with a particle fluence of 1.2 ×107 cm−2. No single-event latchup (SEL) was observed in theirradiated samples during the heavy-ion exposure.

AB - This article presents a radiation-hardened-by-process 56-Gb/s electro-absorption modulator (EAM) driverdesigned in a 130-nm silicon germanium (SiGe) bipolar comple-mentary metal oxide semiconductor (BiCMOS) technology forapplication in optical intrasatellite links. Details of the driverarchitecture are provided, along with the electrical and opticalmeasurement setups used to evaluate its performance. To assessthe vulnerability of the driver against radiation exposure in thespace environment, samples were irradiated with X-rays up toa total accumulated dose of 1.2 Mrad(Si), simulating the effectsof total ionizing dose (TID) in orbit. Furthermore, heavy-ionexperiments corroborated the driver’s resilience to single-eventtransients (SETs) across a range of linear energy transfers (LETs)from 20 to 65.2 MeV cm2/mg, with a particle fluence of 1.2 ×107 cm−2. No single-event latchup (SEL) was observed in theirradiated samples during the heavy-ion exposure.

KW - Analog integrated circuit (IC) design

KW - optical transmitters

KW - radiation effects

KW - radiation hardening by process

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DO - 10.1109/TNS.2025.3543637

M3 - Article

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VL - 72

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JO - IEEE Transactions on Nuclear Science

JF - IEEE Transactions on Nuclear Science

IS - 4

ER -

Radiation Assessment of a 56-Gb/s Electro-Absorption Modulator Driver for Optical Intrasatellite Links

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