Design Verification

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Design Verification Method for Radiation
Hardness Using Simulation Farms
For further information please contact Alterna
tive System Concepts, Inc. 22 Haverhill Road P.
O. Box 128 Windham, NH 03087 Tel 603 437
2234 asc-info_at_ascinc.com www.ascinc.com
or Fintronic USA, Inc. 1119 Chess Drive Foster
City, CA 94404 Tel [phone] info_at_fintronic.c
om www.fintronic.com
Fintronic FinFarm

• Enables one engineer to manage many simultaneous
  simulations
• Based on
• Network of computers
• Farming methodology
• Farming tools
• Farms have advantages
• over grid and platform
• computing
• Typical farms can use between 10 and more than
  1000 licenses

RADIATION DESTROYS CIRCUITS DEFECTIVE
CIRCUITS KILL MISSIONS SEU faults lead to
Soft errors Total dose leads to Hard errors
Fintronic USA
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• Cells are measured once
• and results are stored in
• IEEE standard
• Monte Carlo technique is
• used to establish radiation
• susceptibility of complex
• ICs during simulation
• Fast feedback to designers
• Major cost reduction

Features
COMPUTING FARM
HDL DESIGN MODEL
HDL COMPILER and ELABORATOR
Simulator
Cell net info
FAULTS GENERATOR
Radiation Susceptibility Cell Data
FAULT LIST
ALF COMPILER
ALF
Radiation Characteristics
ALF or XML COMPILER
Assessment Results Confidence Level
Calibration Methods
Flow Diagram of the Radiation Hardness Analyzer

• Fabricate all supported
• cells on tested chip
• Use existing circuits
• for testing
• Use an unhardened
• version of the circuit
• Use transistor susceptibility
• based on measurements

Benefits - radiation susceptibility failure of
cells used in circuit and characteristics of
radiation environment determine the
injected faults - circuit portions that need
not be rad hardened are verified, thus saving
cost - accurately predict effects of hard and
soft failures
- simulation on farm of injected faults mimics
possible behavior of circuit under given
radiation environment - automatic result
processing produces a report aimed at
helping improve the design - IEEE Std. 1603 ALF
allows standardized test protocols and
interfaces