Evaluating Xilinx 7 Series GTX Transceivers for Use in High Energy Physics Experiments Through Proton Irradiation

This paper presents an examination of the Xilinx 7-Series GTX transceiver for use in High Energy Physics (HEP) experiments with special emphasis on the environment expected in the ATLAS Liquid Argon (LAr) subsystem. Two Xilinx Kintex 325T devices were tested with a 180 MeV proton beam at the TSL facility in Sweden. The beam test architecture monitors the GTX transceivers for lane failures and bit errors in the data streams from the 13 links sent from the Device Under Test (DUT). The DUT was exposed to 1.55 ×10
¹³
protons/cm
²
over a non-continuous period of 24 hours. The cross section of the GTX to any failure was calculated to be approximately 7.32 ×10
^{- 12}
cm
²
/lane which translates to an error every 17 minutes for a full LAr subsystem involving 2 ×10
⁴
lanes. No permanent damage was observed on any of the GTX links or other parts of the FPGA. A slight increase in current on the VCCINT power supply was observed at the end of the test.