ABSTRACT
The design and simulation of a complicated integrated circuit such as the multichannel digitizer (MCD) ASIC are challenging even for room temperature radiation-free operation from a circuit point of view. The addition of radiation effects into BSIM-type compact models requires first the identification of important radiation effects for a given process, and then its incorporation into the model using physics-based analytical expressions. For the planned Jupiter Europa Orbiter mission, the spacecraft would be irradiated by four major radiation sources. The thermopile pixels are read out in parallel with a custom MCD ASIC comprising signal conditioning, modulation, gain, multiplexing, demodulation, and 16 bit digitization functions. The current practices of IC design with process design kit libraries and models generally involve use of room temperature models to design low-temperature circuits, since setting the temperature lower than the calibrated range of models during circuit design generally leads to unpredictable actual performance at low temperatures.
