Asynchronous baseband processor design for cooperative MIMO satellite communication

The challenges in satellite communication (SatCom) include but not limited to the customary complications of telecommunication such as channel condition, signal to noise ratio (SNR), etc. SatCom system is also prone to transient and permanent radiations hazards. Hence, in spite of the harsh environmental factors (weather phenomena, solar events, etc), a SatCom system must maintain reliable and predictable communication functions with limited source of power. This paper presents a SatCom system design for achieving both low-power and high fidelity communication. The design uses cooperative multiple input multiple output (MIMO) for spectral efficiency and diversity, low-density parity-check (LDPC) decoding for near Shannon-limit gain, and dynamic voltage and frequency scaling (DVFS)-assisted asynchronous circuit designs to achieve low-power and fault tolerance. The MIMO system permits uninterrupted service in the event of temporary/permanent link or unit failures. The results show that the resilience against injected radiation levels of upto about 25 fempto-Coulombs on critical path is achieved. This is more than 600 times the minimum charge required to logically flip a gate output in ordinary static CMOS gate.