FPGA Device lifetime

You need to look at FPGA grade. Is it consumer, industrial, automotive, military?

Consumer grade, under extreme conditions, temp, vcc, should last at least 1 to 2 years. Industrial is around 3 to 5 years. Automotive is around 10 years. Also, the life time is technology dependent. I hope this helps.

Thanks waiyung,..

Is there any altera official document that state information like you said above? where I can find it? And, what do you mean with technology dependent?

Thanks again,..

I fear, the said numbers are idle speculations. Particularly the expectation of different lifetimes with FPGA grades is ignoring the real device properties and in my opinion shows the statement's obvious ignorance.

Unless you're permanently violating the recommended operation conditions, you can expect much longer lifetimes. There's possibly a lifetime reduction, if system is stressed by permanent thermal cycles. But I would rather expect failure of solder joints than of the FPGA device itself.

Thanks ...

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Unless you're permanently violating the recommended operation conditions, you can expect much longer lifetimes.

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how long? can it reach 5 years? more? or less?

there should be some kind of condition or way to calculate or determine FPGA lifetimes such as how it will treated in some temperature condition, overshoot level, and others.. and how about the number of configuration cycles? will it affect the FPGA lifetimes?

Is there any official document related to this lifetimes issue? I think user should know how long our FPGA lifetimes is?

Please help..

Thanks...

I've been using commercial grade FPGAs for more than 10 years, even in industrial environment, although not in extreme conditions.

My company deployed more than 5000 boards with FPGAs.

A minor percentage of the final equipment had to be replaced but in almost all cases the failure was due to solder joints, improper use or other. I don't think the FPGA lifetime itself is relevant.

Thanks Cris72,

hmm,.. do you mean that those 5000 Board is based on FPGA and already used for 10 years? And so far they are fine? How about the configuration cycles on your board? FPGA configuration is SRAM based, so for every power up FPGA need to be configured. How ofter do FPGAs in your company product configured?

And also can you explain more about failure in solder joint?

Thanks...

Those boards use Xilinx FPGAs, mainly Spartan 2 devices.

Regarding configuration they are similar to Cyclone III: SRAM based and configuration loaded upon power up or reset from an external non-volatile memory device. So, I think the comparision I made could be consistent.

I now use Cyclone III but I haven't long term data, yet.

I expect newer device should be even more reliable than those released many years ago and then with improved lifetime.

Reconfiguration frequency in my case changes on a wide span, depending from customer application. It ranges from customers who never stop the machine for days, to others who turn off and on the machine several times a day.

The problem with solder joints is usually found on the board just after production, especially with BGA devices. On the field the problem happened sometimes after few years, probably due to pre-existent soldering defect or mechanical PCB stresses. Anyway I again say that failure of the device on field is a rare event, and it is usually due to improper use or handling, i.e. bad user connections or ESD.

It's possibly not the answer you like to get, but the lifetime expectancy can be only given as statistical number, based on MTBF respectively failure rates. The Altera Reliability Report contains all available data to calculate these quantities: http://www.altera.com/literature/rr/rr.pdf?gsa_pos=1&wt.oss_r=1&wt.oss=altera Reliability Report

You may need to get familiar with the standarized JEDEC test methods to understand the meaning of the report for your instruments lifetime calculation.

Cris72,

I found that nowdays Computer RAM Modules has a lifetimes warranty on it. And FPGA is RAM based, I hope that both of them has similar RAM so FPGA can be used very long time.

FvM,

I see,.. thanks for the document link, I will study it...

waiyung,

Operate it in recommended condition,.. OK I will remember it,

Anyway thanks for All of your help...

Thank you very much... :)