Reliable Communications Using FPGAs in High-Radiation Environments - Part I: Characterization

Reconfigurable radios implemented on FPGAs operating in high-radiation environments are subject to single-event- upsets (SEUs). The traditional mitigation method of applying triple modular redundancy (TMR) to the entire design does not have to be used in this application. This is because the majority of the SEUs impact the overall performance (measured by bit error rate) in the same way additive noise does. The results of this paper show which sections must be protected from SEUs and provide a guide for the bit error rate performance versus FPGA area tradeoff as a function of SEU mitigation.