Observation of Single-Event Burnout During Inductive Switching

A power MOSFET demonstrated destructive single-event effect (SEE) during ion irradiation in a switching circuit. Further investigation showed that the inductive load causing a spike in the drain-to-source voltage ( $V_{\text {DS}}$ ) that exceeded the manufacturer’s rating for several nanoseconds was enough to allow single-event effect (SEB). These results indicate that SEB may occur in a very short window and flyback is critical for disciplined power supply design.