This is all jolly exciting. This week, the guys and gals at Xilinx (this site's sponsor) announced the fourth-generation secure architecture with Information Assurance and Anti-Tamper IP core support for defense-grade All Programmable 7 series FPGAs and Zynq-7000 All Programmable SoCs. However, this does prompt a question: What does "defense grade" actually mean?
The official announcement of the new devices was originally intended to make a big splash at MILCOM 2012, which was scheduled to be held in Orlando, Fla. Sad to say, Hurricane Sandy caused the organizers to cancel this event. I received a briefing before the release, of course, because I'm incredibly important (LOL). The presentation accompanying this briefing included the graphic shown below. The orange-ish boxes indicate defense-grade components, while the red-ish boxes indicate space-grade devices.
But what about the black boxes and the blue-ish boxes? Why don't we see anything that says "commercial grade," "automotive grade," or "industrial grade"? In hindsight (the only exact science), I should have kept my mouth shut. That would have made this column much shorter. But I had to ask questions, and now my poor old brain is reeling from what I've learned.
A week ago, if you would have asked me to name the various grades of programmable devices that are available, off the top of my head, I would probably have said, "commercial/consumer, industrial, automotive, defense, and space." The problem, as I've come to discover, is that different vendors categorize things in different ways. One vendor's idea of defense grade may not be the same as another vendor's.
Actually, let's take a small step backward. The first question we should be asking is what "grade" actually means. Strictly speaking, in the military world, this refers to something that meets specific specifications. However, in the lexicon of semiconductor vendors, the term typically refers to a part intended for a particular application area.
In the case of Xilinx, the best place to start is with operating temperature ranges, which it defines as follows. (Other vendors may use different ranges.)
C (commercial): 0 to 80°C
E (extended): 0 to 100°C
I (industrial): -40 to 100°C
Q ( ): -40 to 125°C
M (military): -55 to 125°C
In many ways, Q was an unfortunate choice of letter, in part because it has a specific meaning in automotive specification circles, which can lead to confusion, but there we are. Also, we don't have a word that goes with the Q option. Don't ask me why. (If you do, you will be sorry. Trust me on this if nothing else.)
There are all sorts of interesting nuggets of knowledge that go along with this. For example, "extended" is understood to mean extended beyond commercial. In addition to having a higher maximum temperature, some extended parts can be run at a core voltage of 0.9V, as opposed to the nominal 1V for their commercial cousins. Running at a lower core voltage is very useful for low-power applications. But we digress.
"My problem is that there is no official definition of "defence grade" per se -- different semiconductor vendors can take it to mean different things."
Max, is it true. But we used to intent only Military/Space grade components for our labs. Such components have a different set of parameters, for smooth performance under different environmental conditions.
Re: How is the Electromigration Performance on the 28nm Process?
Wliiam,
Electromigration at 28nm is no different from any previous nodes:
It is all up to the design rules a company chooses to use. Since Xilinx suppplies military, space, automotive and industrial grade products, the most severe requirements are used to set the design rules. The commercial lifetime of 15+ years is not limited by EM, and neither is the 7+ years (worst case) at 100% of the time 125C application operating lifetime.
Other vendors make other choices.
Xilinx chooses to meet the 20+ year life goals that our customers have always enjoyed.
For details, consult the quarterly reliability report:
Max Maxfield 11/2/2012 10:19:04 AM User Rank Blogger
Re: Defense-Grade
@Myplanetr: "Max, I think the term Defence and Military grade is new to some of our community members."
I agree -- my prolem is that there is no official definition of "defence grade" per se -- different semiconductor vendors can take it to mean different things.
Re: Max boasting about having solider columns instead of balls...
Devel, in military and space labs, all the components are placing over the PCB with a special type of solder (Tin +Lead). I mean imported type high quality lead and the soldering machine used for this purpose is of having high thermal capacity. Once after soldering, the components are further fixing to the board by a rubberized coating over all the components, to avoid shaking under the vibrating environments.
Brain, they have to qualify under all conditions like, temperature, pressure, vacuum, vibration, EMI etc. Before moving the device to equipment bay, we used to do all sorts of possible tests, to make sure that the device performs well under various conditions.
Max, I think the term Defence and Military grade is new to some of our community members. Defence grade means components that can work properly even at extreme parameters like high temperature, humidity, pressure and even at highly vibrating environment. We used to check such parameters at different environmental conditions like vacuum, EMI and in vibrating mode too. I contrast we can say that the performance of the components won't change under any extreme conditions.
Re: Max boasting about having solider columns instead of balls...
"I have never heard of solder columns before, so I seached on the web and found this"
Yes, the solder columns instead of balls are used when the environment is subject to high mechanical shock.
I recall working for a company which did CPU boards and the military customers would take a prototype, install it into a chassis which was itself mounted in a "shake and bake" set-up, and while the board was running, they'd basically simulate a Space Shuttle launch. When the test was over, they'd remove the board and return it along with a bag of the parts that fell off.
To save this item to your list of favorite All Programmable Planet content so you can find it later in your Profile page, click the "Save It" button next to the item.
If you found this interesting or useful, please use the links to the services below to share it with other readers. You will need a free account with each service to share an item via that service.
Tweet This
