A Review of Particle Detectors for Space-Borne Self-Adaptive Fault-Tolerant Systems

The soft error rate (SER) of integrated circuits (ICs) operating in space environment may vary by several orders of magnitude due to the variable intensity of radiation exposure. To ensure the radiation hardness without compromising the system performance, it is necessary to implement the dynamic hardening mechanisms, which can be activated under the critical radiation exposure. Such operating scenario requires the real-time detection of energetic particles responsible for the soft errors. Although numerous particle detection solutions have been reported, very few works address the on-chip particle detectors suited for the self-adaptive fault-tolerant microprocessor systems for space missions. This work reviews the state-of-the-art particle detectors, with emphasis on two solutions for the self-adaptive systems: particle detector based on embedded SRAM and particle detector based on pulse-stretching inverters.