Proton Induced Single Event Effect Characterization on a Highly Integrated RF-Transceiver
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The proton induced SEE of a RF 471transceiver (AD9361) is studied in this work. Although this study is important to space applications, the manuscript needs much revision or modification as follows.
1. The manuscript looks like a technical report, instead of research paper. Most of the contents can be shortened or brief, and the important or new findings should be highlighted throughout the manuscript.
2. The description in Abstract is likely the research background only. The main results and some conclusions are suggested to be added.
3. The Section 2 is about the DUT and the general test method. The requirements and test site is mentioned in Section 3. These details may be referred from other reports or literatures. The test setup and procedures are addressed in Section 4, which should be briefly presented.
4. In Section 5 and 6, the presentation of many tables is unclear. Please try to summarize the important results, and highlight the conclusions for each test items. It is not good to show both the data of Sample 1 and 2, which is likely to verify “similar” only.
5. Many typo and English grammar errors are found in the manuscript. Please check carefully.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
thank you for your review on our article. We were working according your comments and suggestions and hope that we were able to cover most of them to your satisfaction.
Please read the attached response document for detailed Information/Responses.
Thanks and kindly regards
Jan Budroweit
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
The paper describes in detail the procedure that was used for testing the effect of proton irradiation on a RFIC. The results are discussed in the context of different missions that involve satellites placed on LEO orbits.
Aspects regarding the technical content:
- The related work section is quite brief and could be expanded/improved;
- in figure 4, the minimum energy is 100 MeV, but in the text (row 191) an 70-184 MeV is mentioned;
- some more details should be given regarding the FPGA bard used for interfacing the DUT test board, also regarding the LabView control program. Why is a count by hand necessary as well (row 245)?
- when describing the test procedure, it is mentioned in several places that the proton beam is disabled, for example during a reboot process; it would be interesting to study also what is happening is the proton beam stays enabled also during this phase, as onboard of the satellite the irradiation will be a continuous one;
- some reference and details about the algorithm should be given regarding the OMERE software (first mentioned in row 314);
- how can it be observed that the SEFIs are only caused by a SEU or MBU event? (rows 326-327)
Some language mistakes an typos should be corrected:
- is instead of are (rows 12, 283 and 330);
- of relevant instead of a relevant (row 19);
- is going instead of going (row 26);
- synthesizer instead of synthesizers (row 38);
- advantage of the device instead of aspect of the device advantage (row 42);
- detail instead of detailed (row 46);
- front-end instead of front-end is (row 55);
- includes instead of consists of (rows 60-61);
- are given at the end of the sentence (row 101);
- are instead of is (rows 74, 296, 298);
- into instead of in to (row 202);
- testbench instead of test bench (row 229);
- operating system instead of operation system (row 231);
- stays turned off, it will be automatically (instead of current form) (row 250);
- Analog Devices instead of analog devices (row 264);
- does not increase monotonically (instead of current form) (row 279);
- number of events (row 281);
- The second method was used (instead of current form) (row 314);
- Both instead of the both (row 317);
- Table 10 instead of Table 9 (row 325);
- continuously instead of continuous (row 434);
- configuration register responsible for (instead of current form) (row 464).
Some editing problems:
- In the remainder of the paper, the contents of sections 3 and 4 should be separately detailed, not in the same sentence with the contents of section 2;
- Figures 4, 7 and 14 and Table 1 are placed in the paper before they are actually discussed. They should be shifted after the text which comments them;
- Some of the references are not complete, for example the pages are not specified for reference 4;
- The name of Section 6 should be changed to Analysis of the results;
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
thank you for your review on our article. We were working according your comments and suggestions and hope that we were able to cover most of them to your satisfaction.
Please read the attached response document for detailed Information/Responses.
Thanks and kindly regards
Jan Budroweit
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
Most responses to review comments and revision in the manuscript are fine.
The authors show the data of Sample 1 an 2, and they replied " We took two samples for a better statistic and to verify the results".
The thinking is not good, since the data of two samples cannot provide statistic meaning.
Also, it's rarely seen in research paper to show the data of two devices/ICs for just verifying the results.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
thanks again for your comments. We actually followed the test requirements of the ESCC 25100, which requires at least two samples (not sensitive to destructive events)*. For sure, two samples are not giving a very good statistic. In that way, my statement is not correct. In the manuscript, I modified the sentence and added that we were working according the test guideline of the ESCC.
I hope this will make clearer why we tested with two samples.
*source: https://escies.org/download/specdraftapppub?id=3095:
"...4.1. SAMPLE SIZE, SELECTION AND PREPARATION
For the characterisation of non-destructive events (SEU, SEFI, SET, …), a sample size of 3 pieces
is recommended, 2 pieces are required as a minimum. ... "
