DDR3 memory integration for a softcore in a new radiation hardened FPGA technology

Sammanfattning: New and more capable electronics are required to push forward future space missions, and to pursue this goal the first step is the evaluation of novel technologies. The present thesis tackles the problem of evaluating new FPGA and memory technologies for spaceborne missions, while assessing its benefits and improvements. In this project, a novel soft SoC design based on the existing MDPA device was proposed and implemented. The new design includes a memory controller for the DDR3 technology, while targets a new radiation hardened FPGA technology. Additionally, the rad-hard FPGA is also assessed with the Cortex-R5 CPU to push its capabilities up to the limits. This latter, to find out how feasible is to use this FPGA to implement modern soft microprocessors. The thesis demonstrates that the new FPGA technology is able to match the current timing and resources requirements of the MDPA while improving its reliability. Also, it proves that the DDR3 technology has benefits over internal RAM in terms of bandwidth and capacity. Finally, it shows some problems when trying to use the FPGA technology to implement the Cortex-R5 CPU.