Whither the rad-tolerant FPGA?

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If you look at the business plans of most mil-aero primes, they are aiming for space-based use of rad-tolerant, under the perhaps naive assumption that surviving nuclear bursts is a less-likely scenario these days. What with mullah-vs-mullah struggles in Iran and North Korea looking to Hawaii for the 4th of July, those assumptions may not work any more. But for utilization of rad-tolerant in space, you are right about some concepts of micro-satellites and very simplistic 50kfeet+ UAVs not taking into account performance issues like outgassing. Gil Klinger and Pedro Rustan made careers in the NRO out of telling the space spooks "smaller means simpler," when it ain't necessarily so.

Also...when you get to high altitudes, radiation is only one of your problems. You gotta outgas your semi devices and components (no gas bubbles inside the semi device, or the top pops-off at very low atmospheric pressures...or in vacuums). You could hermetically enclose the semi devices in a can. If you enclose them in a can to protect from low pressures, you can do the radiation shielding at the same time. Also, at high altitudes, there ain't enough air molecules up there to do air cooling, so you have to liquid-cool or conduction-cool hot chips. That is done with the can too. There is more to it than just radiation tolerance for high-altitude apps... At 60K feet, a pilot without a space suit will endure some interesting phenomena. First, his blood will boil at low pressure, releasing all the dissolved gasses. He will start to swell-up (as the gases are released from the tissues and the blood). And then, his eyeballs will blow-out (to release the pressure from the gases). These reactions are similar to what we are seeing in telecom companies today....as they react to the very low atmospheric pressure in that biz...

Yes, many MIL apps are going to FPGAs, if for no other reason than to get off the short life cycle curves of the commodity chipmaker mentality. And yes, many MIL apps are in Aero, and need rad-hard qual. It aint so much about altitude as it is about surviving a nuclear burst and be able to accomplish the mission afterwards. That is why all MIL fiber connections in Aero must use glass fiber (plastic fiber will go opaque and not pass light after an EMP hits it). BTW, new nomenclature on this topic coming up: it's not Rad-tolerant anymore. Since the telecom industry is putting out so much deadly radiation these days (in the form of red ink and junk services), the new term is "telecom-tolerant"...