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FY12 End of Year Report for NEPP DDR2 Reliability

This document reports the status of the NEPP Double Data Rate 2 (DDR2) Reliability effort for FY2012. The task expanded the focus of evaluating reliability effects targeted for device examination. FY11 work highlighted the need to test many more parts and to examine more operating conditions, in order to provide useful recommendations for NASA users of these devices. In order to develop these approaches, it is necessary to develop test capability that can identify reliability outliers. To do this we must test many devices to ensure outliers are in the sample, and we must develop characterization capability to measure many different parameters. For FY12 we increased capability for reliability characterization and sample size. We increased sample size by moving from loose devices to DIMMs with an approximate reduction of 20 to 50 times in terms of per DUT cost. By increasing sample size we have improved our ability to characterize devices that may be considered reliability outliers. This report provides an update on the effort to improve DDR2 testing capability. Although focused on DDR2, the methods being used can be extended to DDR and DDR3 with relative ease.

temperature stress

The NASA Electronic Parts and Packaging (NEPP) Program: Overview and the New Tenets for Cost Conscious Mission Assurance on Electrical, Electronic, and Electromechanical (EEE) Parts

The NEPP Program focuses on the reliability aspects of electronic devices (integrated circuits such as a processor in a computer). There are three principal aspects of this reliability: 1) Lifetime, inherent failure and design issues related to the EEE parts technology and packaging; 2) Effects of space radiation and the space environment on these technologies, and; 3) Creation and maintenance of the assurance support infrastructure required for mission success. The NEPP mission is to provide guidance to NASA for the selection and application of microelectronics technologies, to improve understanding of the risks related to the use of these technologies in the space environment, and to ensure that appropriate EEE parts research is performed to meet NASA mission assurance needs. NEPPs FY15 goals are to represent the NASA voice to the greater aerospace EEE parts community including supporting anti-counterfeit and trust, provide relevant guidance to cost-effective missions, aid insertion of advanced (and commercial) technologies, resolve unexpected parts issues, ensure access to appropriate radiation test facilities, and collaborate as widely as possible with external entities. In accordance with the changing mission profiles throughout NASA, the NEPP Program has developed a balanced portfolio of efforts to provide agency-wide assurance for not only traditional spacecraft developments, but also those in-line with the new philosophies emerging worldwide. In this presentation, we shall present an overview of this program and considerations for EEE parts assurance as applied to cost conscious missions.

space radiation

FPGA NEPP : FY09 summary report

This report documents the activities and results of the fiscal year 2009 (FY09) funding for the NASA Electronic Parts and Packaging (NEPP) program for re-programmable field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs). The FY09 task was divided into three efforts: 1. Device physics-based design modifications 2. Contention study of Xilinx Virtex-4 3. IDDQ study of Actel A54SX The FY09 NEPP FPGA study was organized into these three sections in recognition of the continued and increasing importance of FPGAs to NASA. FPGAs represent the state of the art in electronic components with millions and millions of transistors integrated into a single device. Modern NASA spacecraft design has dozens and dozens of FPGAs implemented onboard. FPGAs are used in critical command and data handling, instrument control and monitoring, and communications protocols, to name just a few. The reliability of FPGAs is fundamental to mission success for NASA.

Sheldon, Douglas

NEPP non-volatile memory : FY09 summary report

This report documents the activities and results of the fiscal year 2009 (FY09) funding for the NASA Electronic Parts and Packaging (NEPP) program for non-volatile memory (NVM) devices. The FY09 task was divided into two main efforts: 1. Development of in-house measurement capability for flash devices 2. Reliability characterization of multi-level vs. single-level flash devices The FY09 NEPP Non Volatile Memory study was organized into these two sections in recognition of the continued and increasing importance of NVM to NASA. All NASA missions use NVM for boot code storage and some limited data archiving. Space-grade NVM has lagged commercial NVM development by many orders of magnitude, however. This gap in density only continues to increase as space-grade memories remain constant in the 1–16 Mbit levels, while commercial flash-based devices shrink in size and double in capacity every 18 months. Commercial flash devices are now at the 32 Gbit level, 10,000 times denser than current NASA NVM. This FY marks the beginning of a significant technological transition in NVM for NASA. The aggressive scaling of commercial NVMs has, as a by-product, made some of the flash devices radiation-tolerant enough to be at least considered for low-level radiation environment missions [Irom 2008]. This NEPP task is focused on understanding the reliability and potential future applications of such highly scaled flash memories.

Heidecker, Jason

Interim test status report for NEPP scaled CMOS

This document serves as the fiscal year end report for the NEPP scaled complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) task. Much of the effort this year focused on development of test capability and initial collection of data on SDRAM devices. Since the system has only just begun (in the last four weeks) to gather data, this report focuses on the test system and preliminary results.

Guertin, Steven M.

Risk-Based Probabilistic Approach to Aeropropulsion System Assessment

In an era of shrinking development budgets and resources, where there is also an emphasis on reducing the product development cycle, the role of system assessment, performed in the early stages of an engine development program, becomes very critical to the successful development of new aeropropulsion systems. A reliable system assessment not only helps to identify the best propulsion system concept among several candidates, it can also identify which technologies are worth pursuing. This is particularly important for advanced aeropropulsion technology development programs, which require an enormous amount of resources. In the current practice of deterministic, or point-design, approaches, the uncertainties of design variables are either unaccounted for or accounted for by safety factors. This could often result in an assessment with unknown and unquantifiable reliability. Consequently, it would fail to provide additional insight into the risks associated with the new technologies, which are often needed by decision makers to determine the feasibility and return-on-investment of a new aircraft engine. In this work, an alternative approach based on the probabilistic method was described for a comprehensive assessment of an aeropropulsion system. The statistical approach quantifies the design uncertainties inherent in a new aeropropulsion system and their influences on engine performance. Because of this, it enhances the reliability of a system assessment. A technical assessment of a wave-rotor-enhanced gas turbine engine was performed to demonstrate the methodology. The assessment used probability distributions to account for the uncertainties that occur in component efficiencies and flows and in mechanical design variables. The approach taken in this effort was to integrate the thermodynamic cycle analysis embedded in the computer code NEPP (NASA Engine Performance Program) and the engine weight analysis embedded in the computer code WATE (Weight Analysis of Turbine Engines) with the fast probability integration technique (FPI). FPI was developed by Southwest Research Institute under contract with the NASA Glenn Research Center. The results were plotted in the form of cumulative distribution functions and sensitivity analyses and were compared with results from the traditional deterministic approach. The comparison showed that the probabilistic approach provides a more realistic and systematic way to assess an aeropropulsion system. The current work addressed the application of the probabilistic approach to assess specific fuel consumption, engine thrust, and weight. Similarly, the approach can be used to assess other aspects of aeropropulsion system performance, such as cost, acoustic noise, and emissions. Additional information is included in the original extended abstract.

Tong, Michael T.

Flash Memory Reliability: Read, Program, and Erase Latency Versus Endurance Cycling

This report documents the efforts and results of the fiscal year (FY) 2010 NASA Electronic Parts and Packaging Program (NEPP) task for nonvolatile memory (NVM) reliability. This year's focus was to measure latency (read, program, and erase) of NAND Flash memories and determine how these parameters drift with erase/program/read endurance cycling.

latency

Effects of Radiation and Long-Term Thermal Cycling on EPC 1001 Gallium Nitride Transistors

Electronics designed for use in NASA space missions are required to work efficiently and reliably under harsh environment conditions. These include radiation, extreme temperatures, and thermal cycling, to name a few. Data obtained on long-term thermal cycling of new un-irradiated and irradiated samples of EPC1001 gallium nitride enhancement-mode transistors are presented. This work was done by a collaborative effort including GRC, GSFC, and support the NASA www.nasa.gov 1 JPL in of Electronic Parts and Packaging (NEPP) Program

Patterson, Richard L.

Development of a Temperature Sensor for Jet Engine and Space Missions Environments

Electronic systems in aerospace and in space exploration missions are expected to encounter extreme temperatures and wide thermal swings. To address the needs for extreme temperature electronics, research efforts exist at the NASA Glenn Research Center (GRC) to develop and evaluate electronics for extreme temperature operations, and to establish their reliability under extreme temperature operation and thermal cycling; conditions that are typical of both the aerospace and space environments. These efforts are supported by the NASA Fundamental Aeronautics/Subsonic Fixed Wing Program and by the NASA Electronic Parts and Packaging (NEPP) Program. This work reports on the results obtained on the development of a temperature sensor geared for use in harsh environments.

Patterson, Richard L.

NASA Electronic Parts and Packaging (NEPP): Space Qualification Guidelines of Optoelectronic and Photonic Devices for Optical Communication Systems

Key elements of space qualification of opto-electric and photonic optical devices were overviewed. Efforts were concentrated on the reliability concerns of the devices needed for potential applications in space environments. The ultimate goal for this effort is to gradually establish enough data to develop a space qualification plan of newly developed specific photonic parts using empirical and numerical models to assess the life-time and degradation of the devices for potential long term space missions.

Kim, Quiesup

Commercial-Off-The-Shelf Microelectromechanical Systems (MEMS) Flow-Measurement Probes Fabricated And Assembled

As an alternative to conventional tubing instrumentation for measuring airflow, designers and technicians at the NASA Glenn Research Center have been fabricating packaging components and assembling a set of unique probes using commercial-off-the-shelf microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) integrated circuits (computer chips). Using MEMS as an alternative has some compelling advantages over standard measurement devices. Sensor technologies have matured through high-production usage in industries such as automotive and aircraft manufacturers. Currently, MEMS are the choice in applications such as tire pressure monitors, altimeters, pneumatic controls, cable leak detectors, and consumer appliances. Conventional instrumentation uses tubing buried in the model aerodynamic surfaces or wind tunnel walls. The measurements are made when pressure is introduced at the tube opening. The pressure then must travel the tubing for lengths ranging from 20 to hundreds of feet before reaching an electronic signal conditioner. This condition causes a considerable amount of damping and requires measurements to be made only after the test rig has reached steady-state operation. The electronic MEMS pressure sensor is able to take readings continuously under dynamic states in nearly real time. The use of stainless steel tubing for pressure measurements requires many tubes to be cleaned, cut to length, carefully installed, and delicately deburred and spliced for use. A cluster of a few hundred 1/16-in.- (0.0625-in.-) diameter tubes (not uncommon in research testing facilities) can be several inches in diameter and may weigh enough to require two men to handle. Replacing hard tubing with electronic chips can eliminate much of the bulk. Each sensor would fit on the tip of the 1/16-in. tubing with room to spare. The P592 piezoresistive silicon pressure sensor (Lucas NovaSensor, Fremont, CA) was chosen for this project because of its cost, availability, and tolerance to extreme ambient conditions. The chip is 1 mm square by 0.6 mm thick (0.039 by 0.023 in.) with 0.12-mm (0.005-in.) wire connection tabs. Three MEMS chips were used to build the first type of flow-angularity probe. This MEMS probe will be demonstrated as an alternative to a standard tube type "Cobra Probe" now used routinely in wind tunnel and aeronautical hardware applications. The response time and accuracy would allow the probe to be translated on an actuator across a flow field, yielding precision dynamic measurements not possible with conventional instrumentation. The low profile, the minimal power requirement, the rugged construction, and the moderate cost all contribute to making MEMS sensors the enticing choice instrument in future research measurement needs. The MEMS probe efforts are a continuation of work initiated by Brian Willis, without whose foresight and efforts this project would never have been realized. This task was funded through cooperation with the NASA Electronic Parts and Packaging (NEPP) program at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

Redding, Chip

Silicon Carbide Power Devices and Integrated Circuits

An overview of the NASA NEPP Program Silicon Carbide Power Device subtask is given, including the current task roadmap, partnerships, and future plans. Included are the Agency-wide efforts to promote development of single-event effect hardened SiC power devices for space applications.

single-event gate rupture (SEGR)

Electronics for Low Temperature Space Exploration Missions

Exploration missions to outer planets and deep space require spacecraft, probes, and on-board data and communication systems to operate reliably and efficiently under severe harsh conditions. On-board electronics, in particular those in direct exposures to the space environment without any shielding or protection, will encounter extreme low temperature and thermal cycling in their service cycle in most of NASA s upcoming exploration missions. For example, Venus atmosphere, Jupiter atmosphere, Moon surface, Pluto orbiter, Mars, comets, Titan, Europa, and James Webb Space Telescope all involve low-temperature surroundings. Therefore, electronics for space exploration missions need to be designed for operation under such environmental conditions. There are ongoing efforts at the NASA Glenn Research Center (GRC) to establish a database on the operation and reliability of electronic devices and circuits under extreme temperature operation for space applications. This work is being performed under the Extreme Temperature Electronics Program with collaboration and support of the NASA Electronic Parts and Packaging (NEPP) Program. The results of these investigations will be used to establish safe operating areas and to identify degradation and failure modes, and the information will be disseminated to mission planners and system designers for use as tools for proper part selection and in risk mitigation. An overview of this program along with experimental data will be presented.

Patterson, Richard L.