Analysis of the impact on soft error in AXI CDMA based on Xilinx Zynq-7000 FPGA

Abstract

The paper discusses the impact of single-event effects (SEEs) induced by radiation in an advanced extensible interface (AXI) central direct memory access (CDMA) core based on 28 nm Xilinx ZYNQ-7000 FPGA. Soft errors of CDMA have been tested with an 241Am source using data transmitting between the block random-access memory (BRAM) and external memory (DDR3). Test results show that various kinds of failure emerge in CDMA in different work modes, such as polling and interrupting driven modes. The radiation-induced multi-cell upsets, up to 8-bit, have been observed and the SEEs cross-sections have been calculated. All experimental results demonstrate that CDMA is a key component leading to increasing sensitivity of resulting soft errors in the FPGA. The test methods and results can provide a reference for SEEs evaluation and protection of CDMA IP Core.