This page contains information and timetable of the X-ray irradiation
system in the CERN Microelectronics group. This facility is located at CERN, in
building 14, room 5-002. It is accessible, upon request, to all users from the
HEP community.
The X-ray irradiation system:
The system is composed of an X-ray machine (Seifert RP149), a 6/8 inches
wafer prober (Karl Suss PA200), and a CCD camera with monitor outside the
irradiation cabinet. The pressure inside the cabinet can be kept slightly higher
than the outside, so that the irradiation cabinet is a clean area; Moreover, the
injected air is dried to lower the condensation temperature below -15oC.
The standard chuck of the wafer prober can be replaced by a 6 inches thermal
chuck (Digit Concept DCT600) to perform high or low temperature measurements or
irradiations. All instruments are controlled by a PC (Labview program) either
via GPIB or via RS232 interfaces.
Main characteristics:
 | X-ray generator:
 | Two tubes available, with Tungsten (peak 10 keV) and Molybdenum (peak
19 keV) targets |
| Beryllium window to seal the tube, thickness 0.25 mm |
| Several filters available on the tube-housing. The most frequently
used (for radiation tolerance studies) is Al, thickness 0.15 mm |
| Calibration performed with a Quantrad PIN diode, with a sensitive
depth of 25 µm |
| Dose rate variable between about 10 and 800 rad/s (for radiation
tolerance studies) |
| Diameter of the X-ray beam up to about 1 cm in standard use conditions |
| Maximum power supply voltage: 60 kV |
| Maximum tube current: 60 mA (at 50 kV maximum) |
| Tube cooled with circulating water |
| Possibility to focus the beam to a spot size of about 300 µm |
| Possibility to insert a monochromator to get almost mono-energetic
X-ray beam |
| Laser pointer allows to align DUT with X-ray beam center |
|
| Irradiation cabinet:
| Large irradiation cabinet (120 x 132 x 106 cm) with lead-glass front
windows |
| Tube can move vertically (manual) and in X-Y directions (with motor
controlled via RS232) |
|
| Wafer prober:
| Semi-automatic probe station Karl Suss PA200 |
| 6 and 8 inches chucks available |
| A CCD camera replaces the microscope, and moves together with the
X-ray tube |
|
| Thermal chuck:
| 6 inches thermal chuck that can be installed on PA200 |
| Adaptor for packaged chips availble (DIL packages) |
| Temperature range: -25 to +200oC (but only usable down to
-15oC without ice formation) |
|
