Radiation Environment-Constrained FPGA Reinforcement Technology and Reliability Research Utilizing Error Control Coding

In the radiation work environment of nuclear power plants and similar facilities, radiation can induce Single Event Upsets (SEUs) and even Multiple Bit Upsets (MBUs) in Field-Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) and related devices. The hardware reinforcement techniques for FPGAs have strict material requirements and high costs, making implementation challenging. In contrast, FPGA software reinforcement techniques utilize error control coding to strengthen FPGA memory and combine with FPGA dynamic reconfiguration technology to reinforce the encoding and decoding modules. In this study, a BRAM fault injection experimental system is designed using Vivado to compare the reinforcement measures such as Hamming code, interleaved Hamming code, interleaved cyclic code, BCH code, and triple modular redundancy. Mathematical methods are employed to calculate their reliability performance indicators. The conclusion is that BCH (31,16,3) code exhibits the highest reliability, consumes the most resources, and can correct all errors of three bits or fewer. On the other hand, matrix interleaved code (28,16) can address the majority of MBUs, correcting all burst errors of four bits or fewer and some sporadic errors while utilizing relatively fewer resources.