Title :
Radiation Hardening by Design of Asynchronous Logic for Hostile Environments
Author :
Barnhart, David J. ; Vladimirova, Tanya ; Sweeting, Martin N. ; Stevens, Kenneth S.
Author_Institution :
Surrey Space Centre, Univ. of Surrey, Guildford
fDate :
5/1/2009 12:00:00 AM
Abstract :
A wide range of emerging applications is driving the development of wireless sensor node technology towards a monolithic system-on-a-chip implementation. Of particular interest are hostile environment scenarios where radiation and thermal extremes exist. Radiation hardening by design has been recognized for over a decade as an alternative open-source circuit design approach to mitigate a spectrum of radiation effects, but has significant power and area penalties. Similarly, asynchronous logic design offers potential power savings and performance improvements, with a tradeoff in design complexity and a lesser area penalty. These side effects have prevented wider acceptance of both design approaches. A case study supporting the development of monolithic system-on-a-chip wireless sensor nodes is presented. Synchronous, hardened, and asynchronous/hardened implementations of a textbook microprocessor in 0.35 mum austriamicrosystems SiGe BiCMOS technology are compared. The synergy of this novel asynchronous/hardened design approach is confirmed by simulation and hardware results.
Keywords :
BiCMOS integrated circuits; asynchronous circuits; logic design; radiation hardening; system-on-chip; wireless sensor networks; BiCMOS technology; SiGe; asynchronous logic; hostile environments; radiation hardening; system-on-a-chip; wireless sensor node technology; Circuit synthesis; Logic design; Microprocessors; Open source software; Radiation effects; Radiation hardening; Sensor systems; Sensor systems and applications; System-on-a-chip; Wireless sensor networks; Asynchronous logic; environmental tolerance; radiation hardening by design; system-on-a-chip;
Journal_Title :
Solid-State Circuits, IEEE Journal of
DOI :
10.1109/JSSC.2009.2017005