"Reliability and Endurance of Flash based Actel FPGAs"

Marco Cheung and Vincent McCaffrey
Actel Corporation

Abstract

One of the major dilemmas for FPGAs in the high reliability market has been reprogrammability vs. reliability (SEU susceptibility) ^[1]. To resolve this, Actel introduced the industry’s first Flash based FPGA. Some of the advantages for the Flash based FPGA include: Non-volatile flash cells (live at power up), no external configuration device required ^[2], and much less susceptible to SEU ^[3]. 

This paper will focus on Actel’s APA Flash based FPGA, which was qualified for the MIL-STD-883 standard in 2005. The main topics will include:

• Flash Cell Architecture

• Programming & Erasing of the Flash cell

• Reliability studies

  • HTR (High Temperature Retention)

  • SILC (Stress Induced Leakage Current)

  • Endurance

  • Activation energy

  • HCI (Hot Carrier Injection)

  • FIT Rate Calculations

  • Electromigration

• MIL-STD-883 Qualification

  • ESD

  • Latchup

  • IO Capacitance

  • Qualification Test Design

  • HTOL (Group C)

• Production Test Methodology

References: 

1. http://klabs.org/richcontent/MAPLDCon03/papers/c/c2_baldacci_p.doc

2. http://www.actel.com/documents/ProASICPlus_DS.pdf

3. http://klabs.org/richcontent/MAPLDCon99/Papers/B6_Speers_P.pdf

 

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