New Techniques for SET Sensitivity and Propagation Measurement in Flash-Based FPGAs

Abstract

Single-event transients (SETs) remain a concern in field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) used for space applications. However, accurate measurement of SETs in FPGAs is challenging. This paper describes a calibrated circuit for on-chip measurement of SETs with a temporal precision better than one gate delay. In addition, a technique to measure the final effect of SETs in clocked, complex circuits is presented. Heavy-ion test results for a ProASIC3L FPGA are reported, highlighting a strong dependence between the VersaTile configuration and input signal state with the SET sensitivity and pulse propagation.