Generally speaking, a single event upset (SEU) is a change of state caused by alpha particles, neutrons, ions or electromagnetic radiation in an integrated circuit within an electronic device. The integrated circuit may be a field-programmable gate array (FPGA) or an application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC), and the electronic device may be part of a larger system having multiple electronic devices. A SEU may lead to an error, a malfunction, and/or a failure of the integrated circuit, the electronic device and/or the entire system.
The error caused by a SEU may be a correctable error (i.e., a soft error) or a non-correctable error (i.e., a fatal error). For an electronic device, the SEU rate may be proportional to the amount of memory devices within the electronic device. For an FPGA, the SEU rate may be proportional to the amount of configuration memory within the FPGA. Even with a large amount of memory, a small percentage of SEUs may cause malfunction of an electronic device. Thus, when there is a large number of electronic devices, either as stand-alone units or as part of a system, even a small amount of SEUs may create reliability issues for users of the electronic devices or systems.
In certain environments, such as satellite orbital space, in which the level of radiation is relatively intense, integrated circuits are more susceptible to SEUs and/or soft errors. Consequently, it would be desirable to provide a radiation-hardened electronic system to be employed in space environments.