Radiation-Hardened High Current Low-Dropout Voltage Regulator for Space Applications

This article presents a high current radiation-hardened low-dropout (LDO) voltage regulator integrated in bipolar technology for space and other harsh radiation environment applications. The fabricated LDO consumes 70mA ground current at 7A maximum output current. The dropout voltage is 700mV at full load of 7A, improving efficiency and reducing power consumption. It has a maximum input voltage of 26V and provides an output voltage of 1.5 V, with output voltage accuracy of ±0.2%. The proposed LDO achieves a successful line regulation of 0.3%, and a load regulation of 0.2%. Through radiation hardened by circuit design, the LDO achieves SET immunity at linear energy transfer (LET) of 37.4 MeV•cm
²
/mg.