Radiation Hardened Microcontroller for Fiber-Optic Applications

Initial interviews with satellite system designers shows that they want the proposed fiber-optic links to self-configure during start up, report link health and status (similar to JTAG in the electrical domain) and report link anomalies (breaks, misalignments etc) during ground test satellite integration all without burdening the flight payload or bus computers.  Self-starting and self-diagnosing fiber-optic links require special microcontrollers not available in the Rad Hard community today.  Specifically, the microcontroller must have non-volatile memory, SRAM and a high linearity, relatively low speed Analog to Digital converter (ADC) for holding and executing start up configuration instructions and realtime modification of laser driver conditions as environmental conditions change.  This proposal is to develop this radiation hardened microcontroller using either hardened-by-design or hardened-by process techniques to bring this device to market.  Ultra Communications presently uses a Silicon Labs controller for non radiation hardened applications. BENEFIT: The avionic, missile and satellite community are on the verge of implementing high speed fiber-optic network connectivity is most, if not all, next generation platforms.  These platform need small, low cost microcontrollers that are currently not available.