Xilinx launched a high-density, rad-hard reconfigurable FPGA for withstanding radiation environments encountered by applications ranging from low earth-orbiting satellites to systems supporting inter-planetary missions. The off-the-shelf Xilinx Virtex-5QV FPGA joins the FPGAs, IP, ISE Design Suite development tools, kits and support that make up Xilinx’s Targeted Design Platforms for delivering programmable solutions. The device is well suited to help next-generation space systems push the boundaries for performance and capability in applications such as video display, communications, radar, encryption, packet processing and control.
The radiation-hardened version of the commercial Virtex-5 FPGA was developed under sponsorship by AFRL’s Space Vehicles Directorate. The 5QV provide exceptional protection against Single-Event-Upset (SEU), Total Immunity to Single-Event Latchup (SEL), high tolerance to Total Ionizing Dose (TID), as well as data path protection from Single-Event Transients (SET). For example, the Virtex-5QV FPGA configuration memory provides nearly 1,000 times the SEU hardness of the standard cell latches in the commercial device, while configuration control logic and the JTAG controller have been hardened with embedded triple module redundancy.
The devices are built on the second-generation ASMBL column-based architecture of the proven, industry-leading Virtex-5 family with support in Xilinx’s ISE Design Suite. Virtex-5QV devices integrate many of the same hard-IP system level blocks, such as flexible 36-Kbit/18-Kbit block RAM/FIFOs, second generation 25x18 DSP slices, power-optimized high-speed serial transceiver blocks for enhanced serial connectivity, and PCI Express compliant integrated Endpoint blocks.
The Virtex-5QV device offers 130,000 logic cells, 320 DSP Slices supporting fixed and floating point operations, and 836 user I/Os programmable to more than 30 different standards for applications and ease of interfacing to a wide variety of system components. The Virtex-5QV family also provides the industry’s first integrated high-speed connectivity solution for space with 18 channels of 3Gbps Multi-gigabit Serial Transceivers for chip-to-chip, board-to-board and box-to-box communication.
The device will be sampling in the current quarter with general production availability planned for first half calendar year 2011.
