PolarFire FPGA Radiation Endurance Testing Platform

Abstract

Radiation endurance testing is crucial for electronic components used in environments with high levels of ionizing radiation, such as aerospace, military, and certain medical applications. This paper presents a testing platform designed to evaluate the radiation tolerance of FPGAs, particularly focusing on a flash-based FPGA from Microchip’s PolarFire family. The system architecture integrates a device under test (DUT) and a tester FPGA on the same board, with supporting hardware to monitor and record radiation-induced errors. A simplified power topology was proposed to reduce complexity without compromising stability. Additionally, the platform supports high-speed data acquisition and real-time error analysis, offering a reliable solution for FPGA radiation testing.