Outside of Normal Operating Conditions: Using Commercial Electronics in Space

Abstract: 

The space radiation environment can cause electronics to fail. Originally, satellite designers were concerned about total ionizing dose effects that cause transistors to degrade over time until there is a permanent failure of the component. More recently, issues with single-event effects have dominated radiation effects, as single particles can cause either permanent or temporary failures. While the electronics with permanent failures often not used in satellites, it is becoming increasingly common to use electronics that have temporary failures that might only affect the data or operation of the component. LANL has spent many decades researching, mitigating, and deploying commercial SRAM-based field-programmable gate arrays in space. In more recent years, this work has turned to commercial memories and microprocessors. This talk will present information about LANL's program of using commercial electronics in space, the possibility of using LANSCE for space radiation effects testing, and other issues surrounding radiation effects testing of commercial electronics.