A Survey on Fault-Tolerance Methods for SRAM-Based FPGAs in Radiation Environments

SRAM-based FPGAs have been widely deployed in aerospace applications in recent years. However, the embedded RAM and user logic are vulnerable to Single Event Upset (SEU), which will result in misconnection or misrouting. This paper proposes a comprehensive survey on fault-tolerance methods for SRAM-based FPGAs in harsh radiation environments. First, the architecture of the Xilinx 7 serial FPGAs is provided to explain how SEU happens and why it causes malfunction. Second, we elaborate on the approaches to evaluate the reliability of SRAM-based FPGAs against SEU. Third, representative fault-tolerance methods are introduced, including Triple Module Redundancy (TMR) and configuration scrubbing. In sum, this survey can serve as a tutorial for engineers and scientists who major in designing fault-tolerance methods for SRAM-based FPGAs in aerospace devices.