Abstract:

 For mitigating the single event effects when employing SRAM-based FPGA devices in space applications, a fault tolerance design with self-hosting configuration management is proposed on the basis of analysis for the architecture and failure modes of reconfigurable Xilinx FPGA. The fault tolerance methods such as triple module redundancy of logic circuit, the error detection and correction of block RAM, configuration memory readback, dynamic partial reconfiguration and periodic global reconfiguration are adopted to mask, detect and recover the faults. This fault tolerance strategy covers all kinds of FPGA failure modes caused by the single event effects and accomplishes a self management of the configuration within the chip, which costs low, occupies small space, and obtains high reliability.

Key words: FPGA, Fault tolerance, Single event effects, Self-hosting configuration management