Page 22 - EngineerIt May 2021

SPACE SCIENCES

Radiation-hardened Arm micro-controller

family for space systems

Designers can benefit from another step in the Arm Cortex -M7-based system-on-chip (SoC) commercial
®
off-the-shelf (COTS) to rad-hard scalable solutions with the addition of embedded analog capabilities.

eep space initiatives including president of Microchip’s aerospace and defense business unit. “In this environment,
planetary exploration, orbiter lowering system development costs while enabling greater capabilities and space system
Dmissions and space research integration are ever more critical.”
require innovative spacecraft-system Microchip’s SAMRH71 and SAMRH707 devices were developed with the support of
technology providing connectivity and the European Space Agency (ESA) and Centre National D’Etudes Spatiales (CNES), the
processing. To provide system designers French space agency, in order to undertake further research and programme initiatives.
with better integration and higher “The introduction of Arm technologies for space applications opens up new
performance, while reducing development perspectives by enabling the use of the same ecosystem well in place in the consumer
costs and time to market, COTS and industrial sectors,” said David Dangla, VLSI components expert at CNES. “The
technologies and scalable solutions are SAMRH71 is the first Arm Cortex M7-based rad-hard microprocessor available today
increasingly used in space applications. on the market. It offers developers the simplicity of a single-core processor and the
Microchip Technology Inc. announced the performance of an advanced architecture without having to implement heavy mitigation
qualification of its SAMRH71 Arm-based techniques, as is required for non-space components.”
microprocessor (MPU) and the availability “Integration of digital-to-analog converters and analog-to-digital converters together
of the SAMRH707 microcontroller (MCU), with a powerful processor core, is a key requirement for addressing new challenges in
both implementing Arm Cortex-M7 SoC aerospace applications,” said Kostas Marinis, onboard computer engineer at ESA. “With
radiation-hardened technology. the SAMRH707, Microchip provides easy-to-use capabilities in cost-effective, radiation-
“Spacecraft and satellites are hardened MCUs.”
expanding in complexity to provide Relying on the standard Arm Cortex-M7 architecture and the same peripherals as
commercial and military operators with automotive and industrial processors, the SAMRH71 and SAMRH707 provide system
robust new communication and data development cost and schedule optimisation by leveraging standard software and
capabilities, greater reliability and faster hardware tools from the consumer devices.
speeds, while the operators continuously The SAMRH71, a radiation-hardened variant of Microchip’s COTS automotive SoC
seek to reduce cost, size and weight,” technology, provides a combination of space connectivity interfaces along with high-
said Bob Vampola, associate vice performance architecture with more than 200 Dhrystone MIPS (DMIPS). Designed

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