ABSTRACT

There are special lines of radiation-tolerant FPGAs [1]. Engineering conferences dedicated to radiation effects [2] cover the FPGA-speci‹c issues. In addition, issues of radiation hardening FPGAs are the topic of a “scienti‹c commons,” that is, the SEE Consortium [3], which brings together experts from industry, government, and academia to characterize radiation effects and mitigation techniques for recon‹gurable FPGAs.

9.1 Radiation effects Charged ionizing particles and photons cause total ionizing dose (TID) effects, which are cumulative over time. Displacement damage to the crystal lattice by protons and neutrons is more of a problem for sensors, and not for FPGAs. The dominant problems are single-event effects (SEE) due to the deposit of extremely large charges by single heavily ionizing particles such as heavy ions (H.I.).