Analyzing Radiation-induced Transient Errors on SRAM-based FPGAs by Propagation of Broadening Effect

SRAM-based FPGAs are widely used in mission critical applications, such as aerospace and avionics. Due to the increasing working frequency and technology scaling of ultra-nanometer technology, Single Event Transients (SETs) are becoming a major source of errors for these devices. In this paper, we propose a workflow for evaluating the behavior of SETs in SRAM-based FPGAs. The method is able to compute the Propagation-induced Pulse Broadening (PIPB) effect introduced by the logic resources traversed by transient pulses. Besides, we developed an accurate Look Up Table (LUT) layout model able to effectively predict the kinds of SETs induced by radiation-particle and to accurately mimic the phenomena of the SET generation and propagation. The proposed methodology is applicable to any recent technology to provide SET analysis, necessary for an efficient mitigation technology. Experimental results achieved from a set of benchmark circuits mapped on a 28 nm SRAM-based FPGA and compared with fault injection experiments demonstrate the effectiveness of our technique.