Radiation test and application of FPGAs in the Atlas Level 1 Trigger

The use of SRAM based FPGA can provide the benefits of re-programmability, in system programming, low cost and fast design cycle. The single events upset (SEU) in the configuration SRAM due to radiation, change the design's function obliging the use in LHC environment only in the restricted area with low hadrons rate. Since we expect in the Atlas muon barrel an integrated dose of 300 Rads and 5.6510 hadrons/cm in 10 years, it becomes possible to use these devices in the commercial version. SEU errors can be corrected online by reading-back the internal configurations and eventually by fast reprogramming. In the frame of the Atlas Level-1 muon trigger we measured for Xilinx Virtex devices and configuration FlashProm: • The Total Ionizing (TI) dose to destroy the devices; • Single Event Upset (SEU) cross section for logic and program cell; • An upper limit for Latch-Up (LU) event. With the expected SEU rate calculated for our environment we found a solution to correct online the errors.