Total-Ionizing-Dose Tolerance of the configuration function of MAX3000A CPLDs

Recently, space-grade radiation-hardened SRAM-based field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) have become available. However, since the configuration memory of SRAM-based FPGAs is sensitive to damage by radiation, flash-based FP-GAs and complex programmable logic devices (CPLDs) are frequently used for space systems instead of SRAM-based FPGAs. Although flash-based FPGAs and CPLDs are programmable devices, the configuration memory of them is somewhat robust against radiation. This paper presents experimentally obtained result of the total-ionizing-dose tolerance of the configuration function of a CPLD or MAX3000A (EPM3128ATC100-10; Intel Corp.). The total-ionizing-dose tolerances of the configuration function of six MAX3000A chips have been measured using an approximately 30 TBq 60Co gamma radiation source with emissions up to 50 krad.