Industry Study Reaffirms Reliability of Actel FPGAs Against Radiation-Induced Failures
Investigation Into the Effects of Alpha Particle Radiation Sheds
New Light on Risks Associated with SRAM-Based FPGAs
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., March 14, 2005 —
Underscoring its
reputation as a trusted provider of high-reliability field-programmable
gate arrays (FPGAs), Actel Corporation (Nasdaq: ACTL) today announced
that an independent study confirms its devices are resistant to the harmful
effects caused by naturally occurring alpha particles. Alpha particles
are a form of radiation commonly emitted from impurities in semiconductor
packaging material and are capable of upsetting the SRAM configuration
memory of FPGAs. Conducted by iRoC Technologies Corp., the study exposed
a selection of FPGAs, based on both volatile and nonvolatile memory technologies,
to alpha radiation and measured the resulting failures within each device.
Test results showed Actel's nonvolatile flash- and antifuse-based FPGAs
suffered no failures during the testing. Conversely, the testing revealed
volatile SRAM-based FPGAs, from vendors Altera and Xilinx, suffered a
considerable number of alpha-induced configuration upsets, shedding further
light on the risks posed by SRAM-based FPGAs for high-reliability applications
in the commercial, military and aerospace industries. The results of
this independent study are published as an update to the report, "Radiation
Results of the SER Test of Actel, Xilinx, and Altera FPGA Instances," which
is available for free at http://www.actel.com/products/solutions/ser/docs.aspx.
"Being one of the leading commercial providers of soft error test
and solutions allows us to observe and project industry trends," said
Olivier Lauzeral, general manager of iRoC Technologies SERTEST business
unit. "iRoC has seen improvements in the way companies address
soft errors, such as the reduction of alpha particle contribution to
soft error events due to the reduction of impurities generating alpha
particles in the packaging, or the elimination of BPSG in nanometer processes.
Despite these improvements, our study indicates that the number of alpha
particles still emitted by today's packaging compounds is sufficient
to cause a significant upset rate in memory cells. Furthermore, as the
industry moves to 90nm and beyond, the overall susceptibility to soft
errors will continue to increase."
Ken O'Neill, director of marketing for military and aerospace products
at Actel, stated, "iRoC's latest examination into the effects of
alpha-induced upsets follows their original study in 2004, which investigated
neutron-induced failures within FPGAs. In both cases, Actel FPGAs outperformed
SRAM-based FPGAs and were able to entirely withstand the negative effects
of radiation, clearly demonstrating the superiority of antifuse- and
flash-based FPGA technologies over SRAM for high-reliability applications.
Further, because Actel's underlying architecture is inherently immune
to radiation-induced functionality changes, Actel's FPGAs will continue
to protect the integrity of high-reliability and mission critical designs
even as process geometries continue to shrink."
Test Methodology and Results
iRoC Technologies conducted a series of tests to determine the failure
rate of five different FPGA architectures, including Virtex-II and Spartan-3
SRAM-based FPGAs from Xilinx; an SRAM-based Cyclone FPGA from Altera;
and the flash-based ProASICPLUS FPGA and antifuse-based Axcelerator
devices from Actel. The testing demonstrated that antifuse- and flash-based
FPGAs suffered no loss of configuration under alpha particle bombardment,
while the tested SRAM-based FPGAs demonstrated functional failures at
rates as high as 260 failures in time (FITs) per 1 million gates. One
FIT is defined as one failure in 109 hours. High-reliability
applications require component FIT rates of 10 to 20, and typical high-availability
applications require component FIT rates of less than 50. Failure rates
were calculated using industry-accepted figures for alpha emissions from
low-alpha molding compounds.
About Actel
Actel Corporation is a supplier of innovative programmable
logic solutions, including field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) based
on antifuse and flash technologies, high-performance intellectual property
(IP) cores, software development tools and design services, targeted
for the high-speed communications, application-specific integrated
circuit (ASIC) replacement and radiation-tolerant markets. Founded
in 1985, Actel employs more than 500 people worldwide. The Company
is traded on the Nasdaq National Market under the symbol ACTL and is
headquartered at 2061 Stierlin Court, Mountain View, CA, 94043-4655.
Telephone: 888-99-ACTEL (992-2835). Internet:: http://www.actel.com.
Contact: Stephanie Mrus, Actel Corporation, 650.318.4614
