What are the FPGA radiation effects and their effects?
Aerospace and space electronic equipment are affected by different radiation effects due to their different orbits and use environments. Generally speaking, the radiation effects that have a relatively large impact on FPGAs are: total dose effect (TID: Total ionizing Dose), single event upset (SEU: Single event upset), single event latchup (SEL: Single event latchup), The mechanism of single event function interrupt (SEFI: Single eventfunc-TIonal interrupt), single event burnout (SEB: Single eventburnout), and single event transient pulse (SET: Single event tran-transmission) are different, and the failure modes of FPGA are also different. different.
Total dose effect: Photons or high-energy ions ionize in the integrated circuit material to generate electron-hole pairs, which eventually form oxide trap charges or form interface trap charges at the interface between the oxide layer and the semiconductor material, which reduces the performance of the device or even fails.
Single event flip: Heavy particles with a certain energy collide with the PN junction of the storage device or logic circuit. The charge formed around the trajectory of the heavy particles is collected by the sensitive electrode and becomes a transient current. If the current exceeds a certain value, the logic circuit will be triggered. , Form a logic state flip. The single event upset sensitive area refers to the area susceptible to single event effects in FPGA, including FPGA configuration memory, DCM, CLB, and block storage areas.
Single-event latch: The PNPN structure of the CMOS device becomes a thyristor structure. The incidence of protons or heavy particles can trigger the PNPN junction to turn on and enter a high-current regeneration state, resulting in a single-event latch. Only by reducing the power supply voltage can the latched state be released.
Single event function interruption: When protons or heavy particles are incident, the control logic of the device will malfunction, and then the normal control function will be interrupted. The sensitive parts of single event function interrupt in FPGA are configuration memory, power-on reset circuit, SelectMAP interface and JATAG interface.
Single event burnout: The transient current generated by incident particles causes the sensitive parasitic bipolar junction transistor to turn on. The regenerative feedback mechanism of the bipolar junction transistor causes the collector junction current to increase continuously until a secondary breakdown occurs, which causes a permanent short circuit of the drain and source and burns the circuit. The probability of single event burnout of FPGA is small.
Single-event transient pulse: The transient current pulse generated by the incident of charged particles affects the input of the next-level logic circuit, causing the output of the logic circuit to be disordered. Single event transient pulses may cause short-term errors in FPGA internal logic circuits. Single-event transient pulses have a greater impact on FPGAs with <0.25 μM technology.
Displacement damage: Single particle displacement damage is a permanent damage caused by the incident of a single particle that causes lattice atoms to shift and form defect groups.
Some of the above-mentioned radiation effects on FPGAs are permanent, such as total dose effect, single event burnout, and displacement damage; some are recoverable, such as single event flipping, single event function interruption, single particle transient pulse. In the above single particle effects, SEL, SEB and SEGR may cause permanent damage to the device. Therefore, generally satellite systems will use anti-SEL devices. Although SEU and SET are instantaneous effects, their incidence is much higher than the above three types, and they should be paid more attention to. Next, based on the analysis of the above-mentioned radiation influence, we will study the reliability design method to improve the anti-radiation effect of FPGA.
With the improvement of the technological level, the increase of the scale and the decrease of the nuclear voltage of the device with the SRAM-type FPGA, the total dose effect resistance performance is continuously improved, but it is more susceptible to the influence of SEU and SET.
In response to the problem of single event effects, the reports submitted by the MAPLD, NSREC, and RADECS conferences believe that the Virtex-II series products have an anti-total radiation dose of 200 krad and an anti-SEL ability of LET 160 MeV•cm/mg or less without latching. , Need to consider SEU, SET, SEFL and other single event effects
If you want to know more, our website has product specifications for FPGA radiation effects, you can go to ALLICDATA ELECTRONICS LIMITED to get more information