Study of the HPM Interference Effect on Integrated Circuit in a TEM Cell

In this paper, HPM is used as the source of interference to affect the working state of an integrated circuit. The effect of the injected power and the orientation of the studied integrated circuit (FPGA) is investigated. In the experiment, it is found that the induced voltage of the I/O pin can reach 70.3 V under the electromagnetic field high to 1257.44 V/m. In spite of this, the working state of the FPGA remained normal.

1 Introduction

With the development of information technique, the features of modern integrated circuits include high integration, fast operation, and miniaturization, leading to a high electromagnetic susceptibility [1] . High-power microwave (HPM) pulse [2] is a typical military circumstance in recent years. Traditionally, the HPM pulse affects a DUT by introducing an antenna. Such an experiment is usually performed in an anechoic chamber, since the electromagnetic radiation by the antenna is open and could be harmful for human. The experiment in an anechoic chamber is expensive. In this paper, we use a transverse electromagnetic field (TEM) cell [3 , 9] to generate a standardized radiated electromagnetic field, so that the HPM effect on integrated circuit [10 , 11] can be studied. This will greatly reduce the electromagnetic compatibility test cost of the entire design process from the initial stage to the product forming process during product design, and meet the electromagnetic compatibility experiment of R&D personnel from the initial stage of design to product molding, which is convenient for R&D personnel to locate and diagnose the electromagnetic compatibility problem of products. In this experiment we found that the pin orientation and package of the integrated circuit play a key role on the radiation immunity of the integrated circuit. Figure 1.

Schematic diagram for HEMP effect by using a TEM cell