Research on edac schemes for memory in space applications

Abstract

Memory used for storing the configuration bitstream of field programmable gate array in space applications often encounters single event upset problems, which may disrupt the integrity of data in memory and lead to unpredictable failures. For commercial memories used in low Earth orbit (LEO), single-bit errors and double-byte errors account for a large proportion. Meanwhile, error detection and correction (EDAC) schemes, e.g., triple modular redundancy, linear block codes, memory scrubbing, and the combination of these schemes, are very popular in LEO missions. To further these works, a novel EDAC scheme with cascaded “Bose–Chaudhuri–Hocquenghem and cyclic redundancy check” codes and a proper scrubbing method is presented in this paper. The performance of the proposed design is measured and compared with state-of-the-art EDAC schemes in terms of hardware overhead, time overhead and error correction and detection capabilities. It is concluded that the proposed EDAC scheme is better suited for memory in space applications.