An ultra-low-power, radiation-tolerant Reed Solomon encoder for space applications

Power is a limiting constraint in spacecraft design. This paper describes a Reed Solomon encoder designed for NASA using a triple metal, 0.35 /spl mu/m, ultra-low-power (500mV) CMOS process. Comparisons with a 3.3 V version show a 29.6 to 1 reduction in power to 14.3 mW at 60 MHz. Hardness against space radiation effects was achieved through circuit and layout techniques.