FPGAs With Exceptional Reliability

Our FPGAs use nonvolatile configuration technology, which is immune to upset due to ionizing radiation and subatomic particles. High-reliability applications that use our FPGAs are protected from configuration upsets due to alpha particles originating in package molding compounds, high-energy neutrons generated in the atmosphere and protons and heavy ions in space. These naturally occurring forms of radiation plague SRAM-based FPGAs and require elaborate mitigation schemes that increase power, cost and footprint. When considered as a population of systems, configuration upsets in SRAM FPGAs have a dramatic impact on system Mean Time Between Failure (MTBF). Our FPGAs are immune to this effect.

We adhere rigorously to industry standards for qualification and screening, giving you confidence for your safety-critical, mission-critical and high-availability applications. Our FPGAs are qualified to the most exacting standards prevailing in the industry; our internal technical review board, and in some cases, external agencies like the Defense Logistics Agency (DLA), ratify our qualifications. We qualify FPGAs to the following standards:

• Mil Std 883
• Mil Prf 38535/QML
• ISO 26262
• AEC-Q100
• JEDEC JESD47

Our FPGAs have been deployed in the most hostile environments imaginable—from the depths of the oceans to the sun’s corona and beyond the limits of our solar system. Thousands of commercial aircraft rely on our FPGAs for flight-critical functions such as flight computers, cockpit displays, engine controls and flight surface actuation. Hundreds of satellites and space probes depend on our FPGAs to stay in contact with ground control, to maintain the correct orbit and to process and return vast quantities of data from space.

Heritage starts with longevity and reliability. We have been providing the industry’s highest levels of reliability in our FPGAs for over 35 years. There is a reason why our FPGAs ride on basically every space solution: we offer hardened-by-design circuits with nonvolatile technology that is inherently and purposefully radiation immune compared to our SRAM-based competitors. With immunity to configuration upsets and the ability to withstand the broadest range of temperature and atmospheric conditions, our FPGAs are ideal for aerospace and defense, automotive, transportation, deep-well and heavy industrial applications. Combined with the FPGA industry’s highest levels of security, our FPGAs can even become the root of trust for mission-critical communications systems.

Our FPGAs boast product lifetimes of 20 and 30 years, which means you have in-system solutions for extended periods without needing to redesign. We have a customer-driven obsolescence practice, which lengthens your products’ time in market. We don’t believe in obsoleting a product and as long as a customer wants to order, we will continue to produce if all sub-materials are available to Microchip. Please refer to the following table for our expected continued lifespans for product families that may have already been in the market for over 20 years

We can provide additional information on our reliability heritage and the number of FPGAs deployed in high-reliability applications upon request.

We combine qualification data with ongoing reliability test data into a reliability report, which is available upon request under a non-disclosure agreement.

The reliability report includes the following data:

• High Temperature Operating Life (HTOL)
• Temperature cycling
• Biased Humidity Accelerated Stress Test (HAST)
• Nonvolatile memory Cycling Endurance (NVCE)
• Post Cycling High Temperature Data Retention (PCHTDR)

The IEC 61508 and ISO 26262 specifications explain the functional safety requirements for systems deployed in industrial and automotive applications. We offer IEC 61508-certified functional safety data packages for up to SIL level 3 for the following families:

• ProASIC^® 3, ProASIC 3e and ProASIC 3L FPGAs
• IGLOO, IGLOO e, IGLOO nano and IGLOO PLUS FPGAs
• SmartFusion FPGAs

IEC 61508 data packages for SmartFusion 2 and IGLOO 2 FPGAs are in development.