This talk presents the various radiation environments encountered by any spacecraft wandering in space, from LEO to interplanetary. For each of these environments, the potentially harmful phenomena - mainly trapped radiation, galactic cosmic rays and solar particle events - are presented as well as their degrading effects on spacecraft electronic systems.
The fundamental mechanisms responsible for non-destructive and destructive
Single-Event Effects in ICs will be described in detail. This will include the
interactions of ions with the constituent materials of the IC, the response of
individual transistors to the disturbance, and the effect on the operation of the
IC. The evolution of the threat with device scaling will be addressed.
The lecture presents an overview of main types of single event effects (SEE), basic characteristics of sensitivity of devices and integrated circuits to SEE and existing standards and guidelines for testing with the use of heavy ion and proton accelerators. Basic requirements for both heavy ion and proton testing will be considered in detail including requirements for the energy of ions, their...
Radiation effects on VLSI technology are provoked when radiation particles such as neutrons, protons or heavy ions hit a sensitive region of the integrated circuits. Due to the progressive technology scaling, VLSI devices are becoming, more and more vulnerable to Single Event Effects (SEEs) and are subject to cumulative ionizing damage known as Total Ionization Dose (TID). This talk will...
As the space business rapidly evolves to accommodate a lower cost model of development and operation via concepts such as commercial space and small spacecraft (aka, CubeSats and swarms), traditional EEE parts screening and qualification methods are being scrutinized under a risk reward trade space. In this presentation, two basic concepts will be discussed: The movement from complete risk...
The approach used to ensure that parts will meet performance requirements for a mission operating in a radiation environment will be discussed. First part
will mostly focus on Single Event Effect Hardness Assurance. A particular mission will be used to illustrate the method. Second part will develop total ionizing dose (TID) and displacement damage (DD) hardness assurance.
Rationale for...
This talk describes the suitable protections at architecture and system level against the effects of radiation on electronic components and digital systems. After the description of the general architecture of a space avionics system, the potential solutions for each type of units constituting an on-board computer are presented through the example of real space applications: avionics bus,...
In this talk, we will be discussed the practical use of formal based techniques, such as SAT, SMT and probabilistic model checker to analyze SEEs at logical and higher abstraction levels. Through examples, we will illustrate each approach and its benefits.
Fault injection is a widely used method to evaluate fault effects and error mitigation in a design. While not a replacement for standard Radiation- Hardness Assurance methodologies, it can provide valuable information in a quick and inexpensive manner. Moreover, recent developments have improved performance by several orders of magnitude, thus enabling the realization of extremely large fault...
This presentation describes a method devoted to SEU error-rate prediction for processor-based architectures. The proposed method combines results issued from fault-injection, performed at circuit by means of CEU (Code Emulated Upsets), to those issued from radiation ground tests. It allows predicting error rates without requiring radiation ground-tests for future applications. The approach was...
Technology is changing at a fast pace. Transistor geometries are getting smaller, voltage thresholds are getting lower, design complexity is exponentially increasing, and user options are expanding. Consequently, reliable insertion of error detection and correction (EDAC) circuitry has become relatively challenging. As a response, a variety of mitigation techniques are being implemented. They...
The effects produced by radiation on integrated circuits can be classified into Single Event Effects (SEE) related to transient problems and Total Ionization Dose (TID) effects that arise due to the long exposure time ionizing radiation. The mitigation of these effects on integrated circuits can be done in three ways: Manufacturing Process Level, Architectural Level (redundancy) and Layout...
Most satellites use radiation-hardened microprocessors, as many organizations are concerned that a microprocessor failure could be catastrophic to the mission. Most radiation hardened microprocessors are not as capable as commercial microprocessors, and the instrument's performance might be affected by the microprocessor's capability. Commercial microprocessors can be useful for secondary,...
This work evaluates the SEE static and dynamic sensitivity of a single-chip many-core processor having implemented 16 compute clusters, each one with 16 processing cores. A comparison of the dynamic tests when processing-cores cache memories are enabled and disabled is presented. The experiments were validated through radiation ground testing performed with 14 MeV neutrons on the MPPA-256...
Carrier generation induced by pulsed-laser excitation has become an essential tool for the investigation of single-event effects (SEEs) of micro- and nano-electronic structures. The qualitative capabilities of this approach include, among others, sensitive node identification, radiation hardened circuit verification, basic mechanisms investigations, model validation and calibration, screening...
This talk describes one application of CNES methodology for allowing using commercial (COTS) digital electronic components in large spacecrafts. The required steps the components have to successfully pass before to be authorized to fly are presented. Then, the limitation concerning COTS usable performance is outlined. Even if these specificities reduce the attractiveness of commercial...
Commercial electronics compared to their space qualified counterparts are increasingly proving to be fit for use in space. High performance and reliability together with reduction of qualification costs and less testing time play an important role in the development of the space market. Space- COTS are commercial components qualified for small satellite missions, which support the NewSpace...
ABSTRACT - SRAM-based Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) in Aerospace Applications are increasingly attractive for their high integration and reprogrammability but their configuration memory still suffers of and high radiation sensitivity and still requires long time to be reconfigured in-flight. Thus, dependability and performability of such systems are major concerns in safety-critical...
Concept, purpose and functionality of the highly miniaturized radiation monitor (MIRAM) will be presented. The monitor is a specialized device with purpose of radiation field monitoring-characterization and online composition recognition with purpose to be deployed and operated on the earth orbit satellites. The device is currently being developed for ESA-ESTEC institution. Design has to meet...
Abstract: Silicon On Insulator (SOI) technology has already improved immunity to Single Event Effects (SEE) thanks to the presence of the Buried Oxide (BOX). However, this technology remain very sensitive to the Total Ionizing Dose (TID) [1]. In recent works, we have integrated micro-heaters in the close vicinity of Partially-Depleted (PD) Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor Field-Effect Transistors...
In this work we summarize some recent experiments carried out at the three different irradiation facilities from the Centro Nacional de Aceleradores (CNA), using either gamma radiation from a Co-60 source, or protons and neutrons from the particle accelerators. In addition, the main characteristics of a new chamber which will be available at CNA in the near future and specially designed to...
Single event effects (SEEs) of atom switches (ASs) embedded on 40-nm complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) were investigated with both heavy ion and pulsed laser irradiation. In the evaluation of atom switch-based field programmable Gate Array (AS-FPGA), ASs showed immunity against the irradiation and there was no change of the state of ASs both in a cross-bar switch and memory in...
The SXRM is a concept of a multilayer cosmic radiation detector currently being developed at the FNSPE, CTU in Prague.
Its main objective is a determination of the incoming particles species, estimation of their energy using pattern recognition techniques and trajectories reconstruction.
The geometric layout is designed to be compact with dimensions of \mbox{$5 \times 5 \times 4.2$ cm$^3$}...
