Impact of GigaRad Ionizing Dose on 28 nm bulk MOSFETs for future HL-LHC

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) running at CERN will soon be upgraded to increase its luminosity giving rise to radiations reaching the level of GigaRad Total Ionizing Dose (TID). This paper investigates the impact of such high radiation on transistors fabricated in a commercial 28 nm bulk CMOS process with the perspective of using it for the future silicon-based detectors. The DC electrical behavior of nMOSFETs is studied up to 1 Grad TID. All tested devices demonstrate to withstand that dose without any radiation-hard layout techniques. In spite of that, they experience a significant drain leakage current increase which may affect normal device operation. In addition, a moderate threshold voltage shift and subthreshold slope degradation is observed. These phenomena have been linked to radiation-induced effects like interface and switching oxide traps, together with parasitic side-wall transistors.