The Actel SX-A family of devices' enhanced RTSX-S RadTolerant FPGAs are devices created specifically for improved radiation performance. The RTSX-S family is a special product offering for space applications because it has D-type flip-flops that have been SEU-hardened and provide Triple Module Redundancy (TMR) benefits without the added overhead. RTSX-S offers levels of radiation survivability far beyond that of typical CMOS devices and was produced using 0.25 m technology at the Matsushita (MEC) facility in Japan. The highly successful SX-A sea-of-modules architecture served as the inspiration for Actel's RTSX-S architecture, which was created to enhance upset and total-dose performance in radiation environments. The RTSX-S family makes efficient use of silicon by placing the routing interconnect resources between the three metal layers in the RT54SX32S and the four metal layers in the RT54SX72S.
This completely eliminates the interconnect resources and routing channels between logic modules that are present in conventional FPGAs. A grid of logic modules covers the entire FPGA's floor in a sea-of-modules architecture, with hardly any chip space being lost to interconnects or routing. To improve its performance in radiation environments, the RTSX-S architecture adds a number of improvements over the SX-A architecture, including SEU-hardened flip-flops, wider clock lines, and stronger clock drivers.
