Evaluating Xilinx 7 Series GTX Transceivers for Use in High Energy Physics Experiments Through Proton Irradiation

This paper presents an examination of the Xilinx 7-Series GTX transceiver for use in High Energy Physics (HEP) experiments with special emphasis on the environment expected in the ATLAS Liquid Argon (LAr) subsystem. Two Xilinx Kintex 325T devices were tested with a 180 MeV proton beam at the TSL facility in Sweden. The beam test architecture monitors the GTX transceivers for lane failures and bit errors in the data streams from the 13 links sent from the Device Under Test (DUT). The DUT was exposed to 1.55 ×1013 protons/cm2 over a non-continuous period of 24 hours. The cross section of the GTX to any failure was calculated to be approximately 7.32 ×10 - 12 cm2/lane which translates to an error every 17 minutes for a full LAr subsystem involving 2 ×104 lanes. No permanent damage was observed on any of the GTX links or other parts of the FPGA. A slight increase in current on the VCCINT power supply was observed at the end of the test.

[1]  Michael E. Jones,et al.  The versatile link, a common project for super-LHC , 2009 .

[2]  Gary Swift,et al.  Single-Event Characterization of Multi-Gigabit Transceivers (MGT) in Space-Grade Virtex-5QV Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGA) , 2010, 2011 IEEE Radiation Effects Data Workshop.

[3]  David Petrick,et al.  Virtex-II Pro See Test Methods and Results , 2013 .

[4]  Isabelle Wingerter-Seez,et al.  ATLAS Liquid Argon Calorimeter Phase-I Upgrade Technical Design Report , 2013 .

[5]  Xue Liu,et al.  Design and FPGA Implementation of High-Speed, Fixed-Latency Serial Transceivers , 2014, IEEE Transactions on Nuclear Science.

[6]  S. Feger,et al.  The GBT-FPGA core: features and challenges , 2015 .

[7]  Olga Novgorodova.  The ATLAS liquid argon calorimeter: upgrade plans for the HL-LHC , 2015 .

[8]  Brent Nelson,et al.  Dual channel architecture for reliable FPGA high speed serial links , 2011, 2011 Aerospace Conference.

[9]  H. Takai,et al.  Soft error rate estimations of the Kintex-7 FPGA within the ATLAS Liquid Argon (LAr) Calorimeter , 2014 .

[10]  P.L. Murray,et al.  Multi Gigabit Transceiver Configuration RAM Fault Injection Response , 2005, 2005 IEEE Aerospace Conference.

[11]  Csaba Soos,et al.  FPGA-based Bit-Error-Rate Tester for SEU-hardened Optical Links , 2009 .

[12]  Massimo Violante,et al.  Power Consumption Versus Configuration SEUs in Xilinx Virtex-5 FPGAs , 2013, IEEE Transactions on Nuclear Science.

[13]  Alberto Aloisio,et al.  Fixed-Latency, Multi-Gigabit Serial Links With Xilinx FPGAs , 2011, IEEE Transactions on Nuclear Science.

[14]  A. Marchioro,et al.  The GBT : A proposed architecure for multi-Gb/s data transmission in high energy physics , 2007 .

[15]  A. Marchioro,et al.  The GBT, a Proposed Architecture for Multi-Gb/s Data Transmission in High Energy Physics , 2007 .

[16]  A. N. Smirnov,et al.  Characterization of the ANITA Neutron Source for Accelerated SEE Testing at the Svedberg Laboratory , 2009, REDW 2009.

[17]  Ulf Mjörnmark,et al.  ATLAS High-Level Trigger, Data Acquisition and Controls Technical Design Report , 2003 .

[18]  Brent Nelson,et al.  Characterization and Mitigation of the MGT-Based Aurora Protocol in a Radiation Environment , 2013, 2013 IEEE Radiation Effects Data Workshop (REDW).

[19]  A. Goshaw.  The ATLAS Experiment at the CERN Large Hadron Collider , 2008 .