The other Atmel: Radiation Hardened Sparc CPU’s
When you think of Atmel what do you typically thing? High Speed 8051 microcontrollers and AVR RISC processors. Maybe the occasional EEPROM. But there is another side of Atmel.
Atmel AT697F Rad-Hard SPARC
Atmel also makes a line of radiation hardened space qualified SPARC CPU’s. These are used extensively by the European Space Agency and other satellite builders. Atmel just released anew one too. The AT697F, a revision of the AT697E. What can it do? well oits a full 32bit SPARC V8 core, running at 100MHz (90MIPS). Its made on 0.18u which is very impressive for a space based processors. Most of Atmels other designs are basing on a half micron process.
A larger process like half a micron gives increased radiation resistance, but at the expense of speed. At 0.18u Atmel has got the speed up to 100MHz, AND increased radiation tolerance to 300krads. To put that in perspective, a dose of only 1 krad (1000 rems) will kill you 99% of the time so these processors can continue to function at over 300 times that.
Source: EE Product Center
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SPARC
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Processor Manufacturers, Processor News
