Product category:
Programmable Logic Devices
News Release from: Actel Europe | Subject: RT54SX32S
Edited by the Electronicstalk Editorial
Team on 24 July 2001
FPGAs have hardened latches for space
reliability
Actel has qualified and is shipping its RT54SX32S FPGA, the first member of its radiation-tolerant RTSX-S family specifically designed to address single-event upsets (SEUs) in space.
Actel has qualified and is shipping its RT54SX32S FPGA, the first member of its radiation-tolerant RTSX-S family specifically designed to address single-event upsets (SEUs) in space Actel's RTSX-S family is the industry's first FPGA solution built using SEU-hardened latches, eliminating the need for software-based triple module redundancy (TMR)
This article was originally published on Electronicstalk on 5 Dec 2003 at 8.00am (UK)
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At >63MeV-cm2/mg SEU performance, Actel's 32,000-gate RT54SX32S antifuse device greatly exceeds the linear energy transfer (LET) threshold of >37MeV-cm2/mg, a physical requirement common to the majority of satellite applications.
The SEU-hardened latches, total ionising dose (TID) performance in excess of 100krad, and inherent single-event latchup (SEL) demonstrate the RTSX-S family's robust survivability within radiation-intensive applications, such as low-Earth orbiting satellites and deep space probes.
"Exceeding our SEU design goals by such a wide margin, and thus setting new standards for radiation-tolerant FPGAs, is exciting news for designers in the space industry", said John Bendekovic, director of worldwide aerospace sales at Actel.
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"We have already shipped the RT54SX32S to multiple customers, clear evidence of Actel's continued commitment to providing fully-qualified FPGAs for flight-critical applications where device failure is not an option".
The RT54SX32S has been fully characterised for the effects of TID, SEL and SEU.
Further, the radiation performance of the device has exceeded expectations for both process- and design-dependent parameters, as substantiated by three independent tests.
The RTSX-S family's SEU-hardened latch proved to be impervious to heavy ion upset far beyond Actel's 37 LETth goal; TID performance tested in excess of 100krad; and, consistent with all of Actel's radiation-hardened and radiation-tolerant devices, the RT54SX32S has tested immune to destructive heavy ion-induced SEL effects.
The RTSX-S family ranges in density from 32,000 to 72,000 typical gates, and offers system performance in excess of 250MHz.
Actel's RTSX-S family is the industry's first FPGA solution built on a foundation of hardened latches, which obviates the need for TMR.
Traditional FPGAs, which do not use hardened latches, force the user to implement TMR using software or a large portion of the device's programmable logic.
This process of majority voting, or redundancy, means that two-thirds of the density, or available logic, is consumed for redundancy and isn't available for the user's design.
Fully qualified RT54SX32S, MIL-STD 883 Class B and Class S-equivalent "E flow" production quantities are available now.
Software support for the RTSX-S family is provided by Actel's Libero integrated design environment.
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