Reconfigurable Electronics for Extreme Environments

Abstract

This chapter argues in favor of adaptive reconfiguration as a technique to expand the operational envelope of analog electronics for extreme environments (EE). In addition to hardening-by-process and hardening-by-design, “hardening-by-reconfiguration”, when applicable, could be used to mitigate drifts and functional deviations coming from degradation or complete damage on electronic devices (integrated circuits) in EE, by using reconfigurable devices and an adaptive self-reconfiguration of their circuit topology. Conventional circuit design exploits device characteristics within a certain temperature/radiation range; when that is exceeded, the circuit function deviates from its set-point. On a reconfigurable device, although component parameters change in EE, a new circuit design suitable for new parameter values may be mapped into the reconfigurable structure to recover the initial circuit function. Partly degraded resources can still be used, while completely damaged resources may be bypassed. Designs suitable for various environmental conditions can be determined prior to reaching destination or can be determined in situ, by using adaptive reconfiguration algorithms running on built-in digital controllers. Laboratory demonstrations of this hardening-by-reconfiguration technique were performed by JPL in several independent experiments in which bulk CMOS reconfigurable devices were exposed to, and functionally altered by, low temperatures (~ −196°C), high temperatures (~280°C) or radiation (300kRad TID), and then recovered by adaptive reconfiguration using evolutionary search algorithms.