Radiation Mitigation Methods for Reprogrammable FPGA

One of the needs of NASA is the development of avionic systems and components that have the capability to operate in extreme radiation and temperature environments found in deep space, as well as the lunar and Martian surfaces. As a result, spacecraft electronics will be required to be hardened against radiation environment and temperature cycling. In fact, they should withstand a total ionizing dose (TID) of at least 100 krads (Si) and provide single-event latchup (SEL) immunity of at least 100 MeV cm2/mg. As part of these needs, NASA is interested in Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) technology with reliable reprogrammability and a degree of radiation hardness. We intend to answer NASA's need for FPGA technologies suitable for future exploration systems. In Phase I, we plan to focus on the integration of radiation hardening technologies involving both the structure of the FPGA and its sub-components, as well as use of an advanced foundry process and specialized circuits to mitigate radiation.