Spaceflight-qualified system designers have a strong need to reduce development time, costs, and risks in their systems. Microchip Technology proposed the concept of starting with commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) devices and then replacing them with equivalent space-qualified and radiation-tolerant (RT) parts.
Now, Microchip is announcing that it has expanded its family of COTS-based RT SuperFlash devices for these applications and is bringing the unmatched 50 kilorad (krad) total ionizing dose (TID) tolerance of Microchip memory technology to a serial quad I 64 Mbit. /O NOR flash memory device for use in harsh environments of aerospace and defense systems.
“The SST26LF064RT SuperFlash device brings industry-leading TID performance to a 64 Mbit quad I/O serial memory solution that works alongside any SRAM-based FPGA in a variety of space applications,” said Bob Vampola, associate vice president, Aerospace and Microchip Defense. “It is ideal for systems used in low Earth orbit (LEO) space constellations and other severe radiation environments where supplemental flash memory is required to store the critical software code or bitstream that powers the complete system.”
Microchip's SuperFlash NOR flash memory products use a proprietary split-gate cell architecture to improve performance, data retention and reliability compared to conventional stacked-gate flash. They eliminate the complexity of power management switching to achieve the industry's highest TID – even when the flash is still biased and operating in systems such as satellite onboard computers and different types of controllers for motors, sensors, solar panels and distribution of power.
Proven in industrial applications, Microchip's RT SuperFlash technology has been offered as a parallel interface solution with its 64 Mbit SST38LF6401RT device, which is now space qualified and available in flight models. With the SST26LF064RT product, designers now also have a 64 Mbit serial-quad I/O memory option.
An application note explains how to use the 64 Mbit serial SuperFlash device with Microchip's SST26LF064RT RT flash reference evaluation board and space-qualified SRAM-based FPGAs.
Just like Microchip's parallel SuperFlash memory, the serial SuperFlash memory option can also be used as configuration memory with an FPGA and other Microchip solutions such as the Arm Cortex-M7-based SAMRH707 radiation-resistant (rad-hard) microcontroller . It can also be used with the RT PolarFire FPGA to support in-flight system reconfiguration.
