Single-Event Transients in Voltage Regulators

Abstract

Single-event transients are investigated for two voltage regulator circuits that are widely used in space. A circuit-level model is developed that can be used to determine how transients are affected by different circuit application conditions. Internal protection circuits-which are affected by load as well as internal thermal effects-can also be triggered from heavy ions, causing dropouts or shutdown ranging from milliseconds to seconds. Although conventional output transients can be reduced by adding load capacitance, that approach is ineffective for dropouts from protection circuitry.