Forum Discussion
Honored ContributorVHDL Porting from Altera to Actel
Hi Guys,
I am currently designing a FPGA based camera system for a small satellite, its for my masters thesis. As my knowledge is very limited to fpga and vhdl its quite a learning curve. My Question : As space is full of radiation, and it can cause serious issues, is is posible to do development on an altera dev kit de2-70 multimedia one and then just resynth it for a say actel rad hard device. Kind Regards Jacques Kleynhans12 Replies
Altera_ForumThese issues can only be solved with redundant hardware. I did so providing a system to be placed into a particle beam, possibly causing damage almost everywhere in the FGPA.
I had state machines, Data RAMs and ROMS placed more than once and compared results, performed validation of the data streams and such. The only challange was, to deter Quartus from removing the full redundant logic :-)- Altera_Forum--- Quote Start --- Can I use something like PROM as a bootloader, for when a error occurs just reload the device. An FPGA can be remotely reconfigured right ?? --- Quote End --- I think it is not so easy. If an error occurs on the configuration RAM when the FPGA is already running, you will not detect that (correct me if this is not true). This is not solved by using TMR registers or other radhard techniques, because it produces a direct hardware change, for instance, selecting input b instead of a in a mux21.
- Altera_Forum
You may want to consider the various effects of exposure on your device. There is a Single-Event effect which may be mitigated with reprogramming but there are also cumulative Total Dose effects which cause increase in Icc leakage currents and can be longer lasting, or permanently damaging.
You'll find quite a bit of resource by starting here: http://radhome.gsfc.nasa.gov/ -A --- Quote Start --- Have a think about your application a little bit - some satellites use SRAM based FPGA like Xilinx and Altera and get away without the rad hardening because they only run for short periods of time before they are powered off again. Just a thought - I don't know if it helps or not. --- Quote End --- - Altera_Forum
Its basically the same one the one you mentioned is the DE1 kit the multimedia one is the DE2
www.terasic.com.tw/cgi-bin/page/archive.pl?language=english&categoryno=39&no=296 - Altera_Forum
Its basically the same one the one you mentioned is the DE1 kit the multimedia one is the DE2
- Altera_Forum
I've only really used the Cyclone 2 dev kit:
http://www.buyaltera.com/scripts/partsearch.dll?detail&name=544-1736-nd it's pretty neat though and has plenty of easy connections to bolt on your own circuits. - Altera_Forum
Thats fine ,
I am in anycase very NOOB when it comes to FPGA this was just the project that was assigned to me, I still have to learn VHDL lot of work in front of me still...... Whats the general feeling towards the DE2-70 development boards, I was looking at the multimedia one. For the academic price its worth it I think.. I will look in to the CRC module stuff. - Altera_Forum
Have a look at the configuration app note - there' a whole load of stuff in there about different ways of configuring the FPGA.
You'll have to dig this out for yourself but I'm sure I've stumbled across a CRC module to detect corrupted FPGA configuration. Bear in mind that you can force the FPGA to reconfigure itself by pulling the nConfig line low and releasing it. So you could have a rad hardened but small and therefore cheaper Actel to do the critical stuff and controlling the power / configuration of a larger SRAM type FPGA. Sorry to be a bit vague with the suggestions - it's not stuff I've really looked into in any really detail before. - Altera_Forum
You are absolutely right, havn't thought of it that way.
Thx Batfink Can I use something like PROM as a bootloader, for when a error occurs just reload the device. An FPGA can be remotely reconfigured right ?? - Altera_Forum
Have a think about your application a little bit - some satellites use SRAM based FPGA like Xilinx and Altera and get away without the rad hardening because they only run for short periods of time before they are powered off again.
Just a thought - I don't know if it helps or not.
