Space Qualification and Validation of High Performance European Rad-Hard FPGA

Project Information

OPERA

Grant agreement ID: 821969

DOI

10.3030/821969

Project closed

EC signature date 22 October 2018

Start date 1 January 2019

End date 31 March 2024

Funded under

• INDUSTRIAL LEADERSHIP - Leadership in enabling and industrial technologies – Space

Total cost

€ 3 059 246,25

EU contribution

€ 3 059 246,25

Coordinated by

NANOXPLORE
France

Periodic Reporting for period 4 - OPERA (Space Qualification and Validation of High Performance European Rad-Hard FPGA)

Reporting period: 2023-04-01 to 2024-03-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

The OPERA project sets clear and measurable main objectives to reach a TRL 7 as follows:
1. Validation and tradeoff by end users of NanoXplore rad-hard FPGA (NG-LARGE and NG-ULTRA) – TRL 6 achieved.
2. Development and testing of very complex ceramic hermetic package CGA 1752 – TRL 6 achieved
3. Space ESCC evaluation of NanoXplore's rad-hard FPGA (NG-LARGE) – TRL 7 achieved.
OPERA is set up to validate and do the ESCC evaluation of advanced rad-hard NG-LARGE FPGA with minimum risk execution and best product time to market. The project will give access to state of the art qualified rad-hard FPGA NG-LARGE and prepare future applications for the most advanced FPGA in the world NG-ULTRA.

The proposed activity is part of a jointly agreed space FPGA roadmap between EU, the European Space Agency, the CNES and the key European space equipment manufacturers. It is supporting the Strategic Research Agenda of the European Space Technology Platform through various objectives such as:
• Preparing and enabling future European space programmes,
• Supporting the industry competitiveness (short term/time to market),
• Guaranteeing European technology independence,
• Fostering technology transfer The proposed activities allow addressing applications beyond the space market such as avionic, energy and transport. These markets are close to the space market in terms of reliability and performance requirements and can be derived from the proposed development in a short time frame.

OPERA will offer European space agencies and major customers the state-of-the-art components they need without having to worry about exportation regulations. Additional markets beyond aerospace will also be addressed. The main goal of OPERA is indeed to validate and ESCC evaluate a rad-hard FPGA and associated CAD tools by integrating all the enabling design and manufacturing technologies needed to deliver high reliability, radiation-hardened integrated circuits.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

Achievements up to date:

Evaluation of NG-LARGE Mass Memory design done
NG-LARGE radiation test vehicle done
Impulse releases done
NG-LARGE LGA 1752 package designed, Package substrate manufactured, Package received
Heavy ion radiation test done
EWS and FT Boards available


NG-LARGE Qualification status:

Assembly of the 3 lots completed at Teledyne E2V
Test plan and test conditions finalization completed
Burn In and retest performed.
Reflow simulation introduced to simulate the column mounting. Activity performed at Teledyne E2V, then re-test at ST.
TID tests done, HTOL activity done
Preliminary flight model delivered to Copernicus mission

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

OPERA will be an important step to go beyond current state of the art of rad-hard FPGA in Europe. The outcome of OPERA will be clear and measurable with the ESCC evaluation of rad-hard FPGA and first experimentation by the two largest European satellite vendors. The evaluated FPGA will be tested in operational environment to validate SEE and TID robustness. OPERA will reach a TRL 7.

OPERA will have a profound impact on the future of European FPGA, delivering a new generation of rad-hard FPGA that offer substantial benefits for end-users in many different harsh environment markets.

OPERA will have the following impacts:
• Reduce the dependence on critical technologies and capabilities from outside Europe for future space applications by providing an ITAR free advanced rad-hard FPGA
• Develop or regain in the mid-term the European capacity to operate independently in space with access to new generation of rad-hard FPGA beyond current state of the art
• Enhance the technical capabilities and overall competitiveness of European space industry satellite vendors on the worldwide market by giving prime access to exportation restriction free high performance technologies
• Work package dedicated to the development of a commercial evaluation of the technology with a full range of recurring products. The future rad-hard FPGA will be available in space qualified package and commercial package with a clear pricing strategy to maximise product dissemination outside space markets
• Improve the overall European space technology landscape and complement the activities of European and national space programmes. OPERA is clearly set up to complement the ongoing ESA/ CNES BRAVE project
• OPERA will have clear social and evironmental impacts by offering a very versatile technology able to meet multiple applications in various markets with the same device. It will also facilitate SMEs access to advance space applications OPERA will give the possibility for Europe to have free, unrestricted access to advanced rad-hard FPGA for space technology. OPERA FPGA will meet all technology requirements specified in the Excerpt from Critical Space Technologies for European Strategic Non-Dependence List of Urgent Actions for 2012/2013 published in June 2014. Therefore OPERA is fully compliant regarding radhard FPGA with the list of urgent actions for Critical Space Technologies for European Strategic NonDependence for the time-frame of 2012-2013. OPERA will give access to European space industry to the most advanced rad-hard FPGA devices without any exportation restriction. These new rad-hard FPGA will also offer unique SEE mitigation techniques and advanced features such as DPS or high speed buses. As described in the chart below, rad-hard FPGA are commonly used in satellites and these new devices will have a significant impact on future space application performance. It is even more the case for European satellite vendors which are often limited with ITAR free technologies. OPERA is expected to have a clear impact on European space industry by improving European satellite vendors’ competiveness. OPERA will also improve space technology dissemination to SMEs by offering a cheaper technology than advanced ASIC development. Indeed, advanced FPGA like NG-FPGA-MEDIUM and NG-FPGA-LARGE can be used instead of many ASIC which significantly reduces NRE associated to new application development

Status of the RoadMap: The product has already been adopted for the CO2M mission and will help to enhance European production capacity for components.