Spacecraft system designers need to shorten the system development time and reduce the cost and risk of system development. Microchip Technology proposed the idea of starting with commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) components and replacing them with astronaut-grade equivalent radiation resistance (RT) components. Microchip announced the expansion of its commercial-off-the-shelf SuperFlash product line to bring Microchip memory technology's unparalleled 50 krads (krad) total ionizing dose (TID) tolerance to 64 megabit serial quad-channel I/O NOR flash memory devices. Used in harsh aerospace and defense system environments

     Bob Vampola, assistant vice president of Microchip's Aerospace and Defense business unit, said: "The SST26LF064RT SuperFlash device brings the best TID performance on the market to 64 megabit serial four-channel I/O memory solutions and works with any RAM based FPGA in a variety of space applications. "This device is suitable for systems used in low-Earth orbit (LEO) space satellites and other harsh radiation environments where flash memory is needed to store critical software code or bitstreams that drive complete systems."

     Compared to conventional stacked grid flash, Microchip SuperFlash NOR Flash products offer a proprietary split grid cell architecture to improve performance, data retention, and reliability. These products eliminate the complexity of power management switching and enable industry-high TID even when flash memory is still powering and operating systems, such as satellite onboard computers and different types of controllers for motors, sensors, solar panels and distribution.

     Microchip RT SuperFlash technology has been verified in industrial applications, and has been used in combination with 64 megabit SST38LF6401RT devices as a parallel interface solution. The devices have passed the aerospace class certification and can be used in spacecraft carrying models. With the SST26LF064RT product, designers now also have the option of serial four-channel I/O 64 megabit memory.

     Application notes describe how to use a 64 megabit serial SuperFlash device with Microchip's SST26LF064RT RT flash reference evaluation board and an aerospace class SRAM-based FPGA. Like Microchip's parallel SuperFlash memory, serial SuperFlash products are also available as configuration memory for FPGas and other Microchip solutions, such as the arm Cortex-M7 based SAMRH707 anti-radiation Microcontroller (MCU). The product can also be used with RT PolarFire FPGas to support reconfiguration of spacecraft onboard systems