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Single Event Effects (SEE)
When Reliability is Vital
Malfunctions in integrated circuit (IC) due to radiation effects from high energy neutrons or alpha particles at ground level are now becoming a major concern; especially for high impact applications such as industrial automation, life critical medical devices, power-train automotive electronics and communication infrastructure. Where continuous and reliable operation is of utmost importance, integrated circuits must not malfunction. Careful consideration of FPGA technology becomes critical. Since unintended changes in FPGA configuration pose a much more serious threat to the reliable operation of high reliability or high availability systems than data corruption, designers cannot afford to take a risk by selecting an FPGA that will not meet reliability demands. This is especially true in applications where downtime is not an option, loss of communication is not acceptable, loss of automation and control is not tolerated and liability is important.
- Neutrons and alpha particles cause upsets in memory elements, including SRAM-based FPGA configuration elements
- These upsets occur in ground-based high reliability and high availability systems, as well as airborne avionics
- Mitigation does not equate to immunity and comes at a cost
Sources of Errors
- Neutrons: High energy neutrons present in the atmosphere arise from interaction with atmospheric gases and high energy subatomic particles from the sun and deep space. When a neutron strikes a silicon atom, heavy ions are ejected which cause momentary current pulses, causing data to change in memory cells or flip flops.
- Alpha particles: These are emitted by naturally occurring radioactive isotopes present in IC package molding compounds. Even today’s low-alpha compounds in package materials generate sufficient alpha particles to cause a significant rate of upset in state-of-the-art SRAM FPGAs.
Types of Errors
- Configuration Memory Errors: When the interconnecting elements used for routing and configuration of logic elements are corrupted due to high energy neutrons, they can lead to functional change in a logic module or misconnected or misrouted signals, resulting eventually in system failure. Learn more »
- Soft Errors: When flip-flops or memory cells change state due to neutron-induced radiation effects, the resulting errors are commonly referred to as soft or data errors. These types of errors can be mitigated using techniques such as local or global triple module redundancy (TMR) or error correcting code (ECC). Learn more »
SRAM Based FPGA
Microsemi's Flash and Antifuse Based FPGAs
Neutron and alpha radiation do not have adverse effects on the configuration of Microsemi antifuse and flash-based FPGAs. Microsemi offers extremely reliable FPGAs for many applications, including military, aerospace, industrial control, medical, automotive, networking, and communications.
Key Benefits
- Microsemi antifuse and flash-based FPGAs are not susceptible to configuration loss due to single event errors (SEE) caused by alpha or neutron radiation
- No SEE mitigation techniques for configuration upsets are required in Microsemi FPGAs, reducing overall system cost (maintaining low overall system cost?)
- Microsemi FPGAs maintain system integrity at high altitudes and at sea level
A repeatable accelerated testing methodology is required to obtain a significant number of failures quickly. An independent organization, iRoC Technologies, conducted both neutron and alpha testing on FPGAs using three different programming technologies, with five different architectures from three major FPGA vendors. The FPGAs were tested until a significant number of failures were observed. Based on these results, the Failures-In-Time (FIT) rates were calculated.
