Total ionizing dose radiation hardness of the ATLAS MDT-ASD and the HP-Agilent 0.5 um CMOS process

A total ionizing dose (TID) test of the MDT-ASD, the ATLAS MDT front-end chip has been performed at the Harvard Cyclotron Lab. The MDT-ASD is an 8-channel drift tube read-out ASIC fabricated in a commercial 0.5 um CMOS process (AMOS14TB). The accumulated TID at the end of the test was 300 krad, delivered by 160 MeV protons at a rate of approximately 70 rad/sec. All 10 irradiated chips retained their full functionality and performance and showed only irrelevantly small changes in device parameters. As the total accumulated dose is substantially higher than the relevant ATLAS Radiation Tolerance Criteria (RTCtid), the results of this test indicate that MDT-ASD meets the ATLAS TID radiation hardness requirements. In addition, the results of this test correspond well with results of a 30 keV gamma TID irradiation test performed by us on an earlier prototype at the CERN x-ray facility as well as with results of other irradiation test on this process found in literature.