Research on the Reliability of FPGA Configuration in Space-based Systems

Designers of space-based systems face unique challenges to insure each unit against failure. FPGA are used gradually in the aerospace field since it is invented with abundant I/O pins and flexible design margin. Many manufactures have been improving those space-qualified FPGA devices to adapt the aerospace high-radiation environments. FPGA devices based on SRAMs have to load configuration data from external PROMs on power-up before the logic is activated. However, not each batch or each device can be configured successfully with zero-failure. This paper explores every possible factor such as environment temperature, signal integrality, configuration rate and so on. Aiming at Xilinx FPGA devices, this paper provides a series of safeguard solutions for higher reliability of configuration. It has significant reference value in aerospace application fields for its feasibility and reliability.