“Infineon has been a major player in aerospace-grade chips for decades. In fact, it provides many mission-critical, radiation-hardened power electronics for the James Webb Space Telescope, which will succeed the Hubble Space Telescope as NASA’s premier space observatory for the next decade. The company also offers a broad range of high-reliability SRAM, FRAM and NOR flash memory for industrial, automotive and aerospace applications.
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Compiled from Electronic Design
The world is setting off a new round of space boom, both large companies and startups have launched different satellite launch plans.
Companies such as SpaceX and Amazon are racing to roll out global constellations of hundreds to thousands of small satellites to enable data transmissions anywhere in the world. Other companies deploy smaller remote-sensing satellites in low-Earth orbit. New rocket-launching businesses are lowering launch costs, opening the door to new competition for space dominance.
As a new round of Star Wars takes shape, Infineon and other chip companies are increasingly betting on products that can deal with radiation from space — one of the most unfriendly environments for electronics.
Infineon last month introduced the first in a new family of radiation-hardened serial interface ferroelectric RAM (FRAM) for satellites and other spacecraft, with durability guaranteed to last for years or even decades.
How to ensure reliability
In the aerospace industry, reliability is a top priority. Chips in satellites and other space-grade electronics must withstand severe vibrations and shocks that can cause damage or even short circuits during launch.
These components also face thermal management challenges beyond Earth’s atmosphere. They must be protected from the wide temperature fluctuations that affect their operating time in space.
But in terms of component reliability in space, by far the biggest challenge has been constant exposure to radiation.
In space, electronic components are bombarded with various particles that create an electrical charge that can wreak havoc on hardware. Long-term high doses of radiation, known as total ionizing dose (TID), can permanently damage hardware and impair the performance of a device over its useful life. Damage from radiation can lead to device bugs or even catastrophic failure.
Solar flares and other unpredictable events can also deliver particles directly into the chip, altering the loss of data stored in memory or causing a sudden short circuit (“latch-up”), which can lead to device damage.
In these cases, off-the-shelf commercial components cannot withstand prolonged exposure to radiation.
space qualification
According to Helmut Puchner, vice president of aerospace and defense at Infineon, demand for high-reliability, space-qualified memories such as Infineon’s 2-MB FRAM is rising as companies and governments support the space program.
“We’re building more computing infrastructure in space,” Puchner said. According to Infineon, customers are looking at more advanced memories that support space-grade FPGAs and other high-performance processors used in satellites for real-time onboard data processing.
According to Infineon, FRAM has unique physical properties that protect it from radiation that could alter data stored in memory. The 2MB FRAM is very robust and resistant to radiation up to 150 kilorads (krad).
That’s more than enough for satellites in geosynchronous orbits more than 20,000 miles away, where electronics are exposed to about 30 to 100 krads of radiation, Puchner said. “A component over 100 krad can cover about 98% of the application.”
He explained that Infineon’s FRAM is non-volatile and also supports data retention for up to 120 years after a power outage. When power is restored to the system, it can also be restarted from the exact location it was at before shutting down.
According to Infineon, radiation-hardened FRAM can replace serial NOR flash and EEPROM memories, which are less tolerant to radiation and consume more power. 2 MB of FRAM is available for continuous, mission-critical data logging and backup, and data storage for telemetry, command and control. These chips can also be used to store boot code for Arm-based microcontrollers and space-grade FPGAs.
tolerance for radiation resistance
A wave of “new space” companies is spending billions to send thousands of refrigerator-sized satellites into space.
But many of these companies are using automotive-grade parts to assemble satellites, Puchner said. The parts are designed to withstand strong vibrations and wide temperature changes, and are therefore robust enough to be used in low-Earth orbit satellites, which are protected in part by radiation from the Earth’s atmosphere. But these types of satellite designs only last about five years.
While satellites that come relatively close to Earth will only last a few years, traditional satellites used in areas such as navigation, communications and defense must be hardened for 15 years or more against radiation and other space hazards. Infineon says its latest FRAM family is ideal for these satellites, which can be the size of a bus, cost hundreds of millions of dollars, and are often placed in geosynchronous orbits.
“Some applications of ‘new space’ have already reserved a certain attrition rate.” Puchner said. “The 2-MB FRAM is more aimed at government missions that require reliability, A-level and higher, that need to exist for more than a few years.”
The company has rigorously tested or “certified” the new family of space FRAMs against a wide range of aerospace industry standards, including DLAM QML-V, the highest standard for Earth-orbiting electronics.
One of the unique advantages of FRAM is that it effectively has unlimited endurance. Infineon’s FRAM is capable of handling 10 trillion read/write cycles, allowing data to be recorded continuously over the entire lifetime of the satellite.
Infineon’s FRAM can also be used in avionics and other systems subject to the military temperature rating of C55 to 125°C. The memory is housed in a 16-pin, 10×8mm SOP ceramic package to help improve its robustness.
FRAM uses an industry standard SPI interface to reduce pin count and allow for a smaller footprint. Serial protocols are increasingly used in satellites, many of which utilize space-grade processors that support SPI.
According to Infineon, the power consumption of 2MB FRAM is also lower: the maximum operating current of FRAM is 10 mA, the programming voltage is 2.0 V, and the operating voltage range is 2.0 to 3.6 V.
start from scratch
Infineon has been a major player in aerospace-grade chips for decades. In fact, it provides many mission-critical, radiation-hardened power electronics for the James Webb Space Telescope, which will succeed the Hubble Space Telescope as NASA’s premier space observatory for the next decade. The company also offers a broad range of high-reliability SRAM, FRAM and NOR flash memory for industrial, automotive and aerospace applications.
To serve the space industry, Infineon typically takes its automotive- or industrial-grade memories and adds process and packaging improvements to enhance their resistance to space radiation and other hazards.
But as its space business grows, it is stepping up plans to launch chips specifically for space. Infineon has radiation-hardened NOR flash, which was designed from the ground up for satellites and is currently under development, Puchner said.
“We look forward to bringing more industry firsts to the space market,” Puchner said.
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