Validation and testing of design hardening for single event effects using the 8051 microcontroller

With the dearth of dedicated radiation hardened foundries, new and novel techniques are being developed for hardening designs using nondedicated foundry services. In this paper, we discuss the implications of validating these methods for the single event effects (SEE) in the space environment. Topics include the types of tests that are required and the design coverage (i.e., design libraries: do they need validating for each application?). Finally, an 8051 microcontroller core from NASA Institute of Advanced Microelectronics (IAμE) CMOS ultra low power radiation tolerant (CULPRiT) design is evaluated for SEE mitigative techniques against two commercial 8051 devices.