Bringing high-performance microprocessors up to space level reliability

An increasingly rapid race for high performance systems has led satellite manufacturers to look for alternatives to traditional radiation hardened microcircuits. One of the approaches is to benefit from existing commercial technology with proven radiation tolerance and focus on specific assembly, test and qualification capabilities to ensure long term reliability once exposed to space environment. This paper will describe the development of PC7448, a 1.2GHz/5GFlop radiation tolerant microprocessor. It will provide insight on how we have implemented space level manufacturing of this advanced digital microcircuit in compliance with the new MIL-PRF-38535 Class Y (QML Y). Access to COTS based microprocessors will enable space systems manufacturers to increase performance and flexibility of satellite payloads. In particular, PC7448 is bringing attractive digital signal processing capabilities useful to compute-intensive applications such as Earth Observation, Weather Monitoring, SAR systems and telecommunication equipment.