Researchers at Colorado State University have developed a novel mechanism to quantify the level of radiation exposure on a SRAM chip without any active power requirement. This mechanism can be utilized to allow devices containing SRAM chips to act as real-time dosimeters. This can eliminate the time-delay between exposure and detection that occurs with traditional dosimeters and allow already ubiquitous devices, such as smartphones, to be used for radiation monitoring and tracking. The technology has garnered strong industry interest, backed by a formal letter of support from a major global aerospace and defense prime contractor evaluating the system for platform integration.
High-dose radiation monitoring is critical for space exploration, avionics, defense systems, nuclear energy, and emergency disaster response. Traditional dosimeters—such as TLDs, OSLDs, and RadFETs—are often bulky, expensive, temperature-sensitive, or require off-site reading equipment. Emerging electronic alternatives like NAND flash fail at doses above 50–100 krad(Si) due to charge-pump circuit breakdown. Consequently, there is an urgent industry demand for compact, resilient dosimeters that measure extreme radiation doses directly within embedded electronic hardware.
This technology repurposes the power-up state of standard 6-transistor (6T) commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) SRAM cells—traditionally used as digital fingerprints—to measure Total Ionizing Dose (TID). Radiation-induced positive charge trapping in gate dielectrics alters transistor threshold voltages, predictably shifting the SRAM power-up bit sequence. By comparing post-irradiation power-up states against a baseline reference state, the system calculates Hamming Distance (HD) shifts that correlate monotonically with total absorbed dose. The dosimeter demonstrates a linear response in the 5 to 100 krad(Si) dose range and remains fully operational up to at least 350 krad(Si) across multiple standard CMOS technology nodes (90nm, 150nm, 250nm).
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Biswajit Ray
Jessy McGowan
Jessy.McGowan@colostate.edu
970-491-7100