Honeywell introduces radiation-hardened field programmable gate array

MINNEAPOLIS, 19 March 2007. Honeywell Inc. in Minneapolis developed a radiation-hardened field-programmable gate array (RHFPGA) for space applications (see related story).

The RHFPGA (see related product) provides designers of aerospace electronic systems a radiation-hardened component that can either replace non-hardened FPGAs or be used for systems designs.

Built with Honeywell's .35 micron silicon-on-insulator (SOI) complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS), the RHFPGA (see related product) emulates the function of discrete combinational and state machine logic and small memories.

The RHFPGA "is radiation-hardened by process and provides the glue logic between the Honeywell RHPPC Processor, 16M SRAM and HXNVO100 1M non-volatile SRAM," says David Wick, director of microelectronic sales at the Honeywell Defense and Space sector. "It is a fast, low non-recurring cost approach for integrating up to 30,000 gates of logic."

Using the memory-based RHFPGA, design engineers have the ability to program the integrated circuit in their office, then reprogram quickly while testing end products. Initial samples can be purchased for a considerably lower cost than traditional mask programmable radiation-hardened ASICs.

For more information contact Honeywell online at www.honeywell.com.