Abstract: The present invention is directed to a built-in solution for soft error protection by forming an epitaxial layer with a graded dopant concentration. By grading a dopant concentration, starting from a first dopant concentration and ending with a second dopant concentration at the device layer, usually determined by the characteristics of the device to be built in the device layer, a constant electric field (?-field) results from the changing dopant concentration. The creation of this ?-field influences the stray, unwanted charges (or transient charges) away from critical device components. Charges that are created in the epitaxial layer are sweep downward, toward, and sometimes into, the substrate where they are absorbed, thus unable to cause a soft error in the device.