Xilinx Say New Chips Adept at Surviving Space Radiation

With all the chatter lately about cellphone reception it’s easy to forget that some companies have much tougher technical challenges–particularly those that make hardware that is sent into space. Xilinx thinks it can help.

The Silicon Valley company, which specializes in programmable chips, on Monday announced what it believes is a major leap in making such components impervious to the radiation that strikes spacecraft after they leave the earth’s atmosphere. Harmful streams of high-energy particles can play havoc with semiconductors, causing damage such as interrupting the switching functions of individual transistors on chips.

Radiation is an enormous problem, says Scott Anderson, founder and owner of SEAKR Engineering, a company in Centennial, Colo. that designs specialized computers and other hardware used in satellites and other space-oriented applications. “If you don’t design for it properly, it can take down your whole system,” he says.

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