Mentor Graphics Introduces Precision Rad-Tolerant Product to Provide Unique Advanced Radiation Effects Mitigation

Mentor Graphics Introduces Precision Rad-Tolerant Product to Provide Unique Advanced Radiation Effects Mitigation

Mentor Graphics Corporation (NASDAQ: MENT) today announced its new Precision Rad-Tolerant FPGA design solution for aerospace and high-reliability applications. The product introduces an industry-first, synthesis-based radiation effects mitigation solution to reduce the risk of functionality problems including soft errors caused by single event upset (SEU) and single event transient (SET) disruptions and has been developed with NASA's guidance. Initial support is available for SRAM, anti-fuse, and flash-based devices from Actel and Xilinx.

With Precision Rad-Tolerant, Mentor is addressing the critical need for automated, FPGA vendor-independent methods of radiation effects mitigation. Alternative mitigation methods, such as manual HDL coding, can be either too costly, time consuming, or error-prone. The Precision Rad-Tolerant solution also delivers all of the unique synthesis-based capabilities of Precision RTL Plus, including low power synthesis, integration with Mentor tools, and specialized features and flows for mil-aero and safety-critical applications.

The Precision Rad-Tolerant product has several unique features that make it much easier for designers to incorporate a variety of radiation effects mitigation schemes, such as automated, multi-vendor, multi-mode Triple Modular Redundancy (TMR). The tool builds onand enhancesproven mitigation methods such as redundancy of sequential and combinational logic. Because TMR insertion is performed at the synthesis level, designers are no longer limited to using fully radiation-tolerant devices and can achieve higher-quality results versus alternative mitigation approaches.

By addressing radiation effects during implementation, the features of the Precision Rad- Tolerant solutions provide an unmatched level of automation and user control. Melanie Berg, MEI Technologies, NASA/GSFC Radiation Effects and Analysis Group, stated that although the concept of TMR was simple, writing a reliable VHDL equivalent was not. He further added that Automating TMR logic insertion is very beneficial to a FPGA designer developing critical space applications, while allowing the user to select the type of TMR mitigation.

A unique feature of the Precision Rad-Tolerant product is synthesis-based insertion of fault-tolerant finite state machines (FSM). The resulting FSM can "absorb" radiation- induced single event upsets (SEUs), mitigating their effect rather than switching the state machine into an unknown or unpredictable state. This form of safeguard meets the needs of a wide range of high-reliability applications.

Ken O'Neill, director of high reliability marketing for Actel stated that Mentor Graphics was enhancing the FPGA design flow for high reliability. He further added that with support for their RT ProASIC3 FPGAs, Precision Rad-Tolerant allowed designers of space-flight systems to take advantage of the reprogrammability and low power consumption of flash-based FPGAs. Additionally, designers of high-reliability systems which must withstand radiation environments, such as oncology systems and airborne avionics systems, could use Precision Rad-Tolerant to protect critical data paths in ProASIC 3, IGLOO and Fusion families.

Tom Feist, senior marketing director for the Xilinx ISE Design Suite said that Xilinx provided proven solutions for space and high-reliability applications that were unique to their leading-edge Virtex families. He further added that Mentor Graphics delivered a unique, synthesis-based approach to soft error mitigation that could complement Xilinx solutions for high reliability applications.

Daniel Platzker, FPGA Synthesis product line director, Mentor Graphics Design Creation and Synthesis Division stated that Mentor was uniquely positioned as the leading EDA provider of FPGA solutions for military, aerospace and high-reliability applications. He further added that Precision Rad-Tolerant filled a void for FPGA designers that were concerned with radiation by providing radiation effects mitigation capabilities that were unmatched by any other product available.

Product Availability

The Precision Rad-Tolerant product is available now. For more information on the Precision Rad-Tolerant product and other FPGA synthesis and mil-aero solutions from Mentor Graphics, visit the company website at: www.mentor.com/precision-radtolerant.

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