Analog-to-Digital-Converter for Space Applications

The requirements for space circuits in terms of power consumption, temperature range and especially radiation hardness are often very strict. As a part of its activities, the mixed-signal-IC-group at INT develops theses radiation hard circuits both by applying hardening-by-design measures to standard CMOS-processes and by using dedicated space processes.

The use of standard CMOS-processes offers the advantage of low processing cost and the availability of a huge number of processes. On the other hand special space-processes still offer an even higher level of radiation hardness. In terms of design complexity both approaches show a similar expenditure for full custom ASICs, as hardening-by-design measures have to be applied to both circuit types.

As part of the project JUICE a 1 GS/s SAR-ADC with a nominal resolution of 8 bits and 2 GHz bandwidth was developed.