Infineon looks to simplify on-system satellite image processing

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Infineon Technologies LLC has announced its next-generation 144-Mb Quad Data Rate II+ (QDR-II+) SRAM that is certified to the DLA Qualified Manufacturers List Class V (QML-V).

This radiation-hardened (rad hard) 144-Mb QDR-II+ SRAM is a high-speed external cache memory intended for radar, on-board data processing and networking applications in space.

Over the last decade, the aerospace industry has moved from on-ground to on-system data processing using new technologies with increased computational power and lower latency. Unlike DRAM with higher latency and memory bank restrictions, the 144-Mb QDR-II+ SRAM reduces the overall system complexity in radar and imaging applications by delivering a higher performance, enabling on-system satellite image processing with better resolution and faster processing speeds.

“As a leading provider of high-density QDR-II+ SRAMs in the market, our successful QML-V qualification once again exemplifies the inherent product capabilities of our commercial off-the-shelf components to meet the most stringent requirements of high reliability market segments,” said Helmut Puchner, VP Fellow of Aerospace and Defense at Infineon Technologies LLC.

The device is one of Infineon’s newest generation of rad hard QDR-II+ SRAMs, with previous generations already adopted in various space programs such as the NASA Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) research satellite mission using Synthetic Aperture Radar technology.

Originally developed as an industrial networking memory, the rad hard QDR-II+ SRAM is nowadays used as a baseline design for rad hard memory employing the RadStop technology, Infineon’s proprietary design and process hardening techniques that enable a higher level of radiation performance while delivering the throughput demanded by space-bound applications.

The high-performance 144-Mb QDR-II+ SRAM operates up to a maximum frequency of 250 MHz, delivering up to 36 Gbps throughput in a 165-ball Ceramic Column Grid Array (CCGA) package. The device is rad hard for up to 200 krad(Si) and is latch-up immune, improving system reliability in harsh environments.