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Actel beefs up rad-tolerant FPGAs, works on rad-hard offerings
By Michael Santarini, Senior Editor -- EDN, 9/5/2005
Actel this week will unveil the latest device in its radiation-tolerant FPGA family and has also announced it is working on its first fully radiation-hardened FPGAs.
With the new RTAX4000S, Actel has introduced a radiation tolerant FPGA that has twice the gate count of the company's last rad-tolerant FPGA, the RTAX-S, according to Ken O'Neill, director of military and aerospace product marketing. The new device, which has 500,000 ASIC gates, 840 I/Os, and 540 kbits of embedded memory, suits space applications such as satellite payload systems and scientific satellites.
Actel has built the device to the same radiation-tolerance standards as its other RTAX-S devices, O'Neill said. The FPGA includes embedded RAM with EDAC (error detection and correction), flip-flops that are "practically immune" to single-event upsets (SEUs), memory upset levels of less than 1-10 errors/bit/day, and SEL (single-event-latchup) immunity to greater than LETTH 104 MeV-cm2/mg.
The devices are immune to configuration upsets and have a TID (total-ionizing-dose) resistance up to 300 krads (functional), which exceeds the requirement for most space applications. "Three hundred krads is more than ample for most space applications and programs," O'Neill said.
Functional prototypes of the device, which aren't rad tolerant, will be available in the first quarter of 2006, with "flight parts"—the true radiation-tolerant versions—available at the end of 2006, according to the company.
"The gestation period of a military and aerospace design tends to be a lot longer than a commercial design project," O'Neill said. "This early announcement lets our customers know this development is in progress so they can use the devices for projects that won't go into the integration phase until 2007 or 2008."
In addition to the RTAX4000S, Actel also announced it is making progress in the development of its first radiation-hardened FPGAs, which take reliability one step beyond the radiation tolerance of its RTAX4000S.
The upcoming RHAX-S family, according to O'Neill, increases the reliability of the device to QML class V. The projected device family will feature a TID resistance of 1 Mrad, latchup immunity greater than LETTH 100 MeV, and logic and memory SEU resistance for less than 1-10 upset errors/bit/day.
The first device in the RHA family will be a 250,000-system-gate (30,000-ASIC-gate) FPGA. Actel expects to deliver the prototype by the end of 2006 or early 2007 and flight parts in 2008.
Actel, www.actel.com.
