DC / DC Switching Power Converter with Radiation Hardened Digital Control Based on SRAM FPGAs

— The design of a DC/DC switching boost converter based on a radiation hardened digital controller implemented in SRAM FPGAs is presented. Single event functional interrupts (SEFIs) are the dominant radiation effects in SRAM-based FPGAs. When applying digital control using SRAM FPGAs in a switching converter application, SEFIs result in missing pulses in the generated PWM control signal of the converter that cause large transient drops at the converter output. Therefore, we have developed and applied a radiation-hardness-by-design technique based on a logic duplication approach at both the logic and device levels and on a non-disruptive resynchronization mechanism, which ensures the continuous operation of the converter in the presence of radiation induced SEFIs. The proposed RHBD technique is validated with both VHDL simulations and experimental results.

[1]  Yanmei Li,et al.  A new approach to detect-mitigate-correct radiation-induced faults for SRAM-based FPGAs in aerospace application , 2000, Proceedings of the IEEE 2000 National Aerospace and Electronics Conference. NAECON 2000. Engineering Tomorrow (Cat. No.00CH37093).

[2]  P. Calvel,et al.  Total dose and heavy ions evaluation of UC1806 pulse width modulator from Unitrode , 1995, Proceedings of 1995 IEEE Nuclear and Space Radiation Effects Conference (NSREC'95).

[3]  T. W. Martin,et al.  Digital control for switching converters , 1995, 1995 Proceedings of the IEEE International Symposium on Industrial Electronics.

[4]  A. Paccagnella,et al.  Ion beam testing of SRAM-based FPGA's , 2001, RADECS 2001. 2001 6th European Conference on Radiation and Its Effects on Components and Systems (Cat. No.01TH8605).

[5]  Jih-Jong Wang,et al.  SRAM based re-programmable FPGA for space applications , 1999 .

[6]  M. Caffrey,et al.  SEU Mitigation Techniques for Virtex FPGAs in Space Applications , 1999 .

[7]  Anantha Chandrakasan,et al.  High-efficiency multiple-output DC-DC conversion for low-voltage systems , 2000, IEEE Trans. Very Large Scale Integr. Syst..

[8]  Jeongjin Roh,et al.  Digital PWM controller for DC-DC converters with minimum analogue circuits , 2003 .

[9]  P. C. Adell,et al.  Total-dose and single-event effects in DC/DC converter control circuitry , 2003 .

[10]  P. C. Adell,et al.  Total-dose and single-event effects in switching DC/DC power converters , 2002 .

[11]  Kenneth A. LaBel,et al.  Radiation effects on current field programmable technologies , 1997 .

[12]  R. Harboe-Sorensen,et al.  Heavy ion characterization of SEU mitigation methods for the Virtex FPGA , 2001, RADECS 2001. 2001 6th European Conference on Radiation and Its Effects on Components and Systems (Cat. No.01TH8605).

[13]  A. Capel,et al.  High-power conditioning for space applications , 1988, Proc. IEEE.