Single Event Effects in Ground Level Infrastructure During Extreme Ground Level Enhancements

We take an initial look at hard single-event effects (SEEs) in power electronics and static random access memories (SRAMs) during space weather-induced extreme ground-level enhancement (GLE) events. We show that there is a significant risk of failure of silicon power metal–oxide–semiconductor field-effect transistors (MOSFETs) and insulated gate bipolar transistors (IGBTs) at ground level during a $10\times $ February ’56 GLE. If the devices are not derated, then we find that 21% of power MOSFETs and 14% of IGBTs are, in the worst case, predicted to fail. The probability of failure increases to 68% and 52% during a once-in-a-10 000-year GLE for power MOSFETs and IGBTs, respectively. Silicon carbide devices show a lower failure rate by more than an order of magnitude, where only 2.8% are predicted to fail during a once-in-a-10 000-year GLE. It is clear that these events could disrupt critical infrastructure if mitigating precautions are not implemented.