AN 866: Mitigating and Debugging Single Event Upsets in Intel® Quartus® Prime Standard Edition

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ID 683869
Date 9/28/2021
Public
Document Table of Contents
Document Table of Contents x
1. Mitigating Single Event Upset 2. Debugging Single Event Upset Using the Fault Injection Debugger
1. Mitigating Single Event Upset x
1.1. Failure Rates 1.2. Mitigating SEU Effects in Embedded User RAM 1.3. Mitigating SEU Effects in Configuration RAM 1.4. Internal Scrubbing 1.5. SEU Recovery 1.6. Intel® Quartus® Prime Software SEU FIT Reports 1.7. Triple-Module Redundancy 1.8. Evaluating a System's Response to Functional Upsets 1.9. CRAM Error Detection Settings Reference 1.10. Document Revision History
1.2. Mitigating SEU Effects in Embedded User RAM x
1.2.1. Configuring RAM to Enable ECC
1.5. SEU Recovery x
1.5.1. Planning for SEU Recovery 1.5.2. Designating the Sensitivity of the Design Hierarchy 1.5.3. Advanced SEU Detection IP Core
1.5.2. Designating the Sensitivity of the Design Hierarchy x
1.5.2.1. Hierarchy Tagging 1.5.2.2. Using Partitions to Specify Logic Sensitivity ID
1.5.3. Advanced SEU Detection IP Core x
1.5.3.1. On-Chip Sensitivity Processor 1.5.3.2. External Sensitivity Processor
1.6. Intel® Quartus® Prime Software SEU FIT Reports x
1.6.1. SEU FIT Parameters Report 1.6.2. Projected SEU FIT by Component Usage Report 1.6.3. Enabling the Projected SEU FIT by Component Usage Report
1.6.2. Projected SEU FIT by Component Usage Report x
1.6.2.1. Component FIT Rates 1.6.2.2. Raw FIT 1.6.2.3. Utilized FIT 1.6.2.4. Mitigated FIT 1.6.2.5. Architectural Vulnerability Factor
1.6.2.3. Utilized FIT x
1.6.2.3.1. Comparing .smh Critical Bits Report to Utilized Bit Count 1.6.2.3.2. Considerations for Small Designs
2. Debugging Single Event Upset Using the Fault Injection Debugger x
2.1. Single Event Upset Mitigation 2.2. Hardware and Software Requirements 2.3. Using the Fault Injection Debugger and IP Core 2.4. Document Revision History
2.3. Using the Fault Injection Debugger and IP Core x
2.3.1. Instantiating the IP Core 2.3.2. Defining Fault Injection Areas 2.3.3. Using the Fault Injection Debugger 2.3.4. Command-Line Interface
2.3.1. Instantiating the IP Core x
2.3.1.1. About the EMR Unloader IP Core 2.3.1.2. About the Advanced SEU Detection IP Core
2.3.2. Defining Fault Injection Areas x
2.3.2.1. Performing Hierarchy Tagging 2.3.2.2. About SMH Files
2.3.3. Using the Fault Injection Debugger x
2.3.3.1. Configuring Your Device and the Fault Injection Debugger 2.3.3.2. Constraining Regions for Fault Injection 2.3.3.3. Specifying Error Types 2.3.3.4. Injecting Errors 2.3.3.5. Recording Errors 2.3.3.6. Clearing Injected Errors
2.3.4. Command-Line Interface x
2.3.4.1. Targeted Fault Injection Feature 2.3.4.2. Advanced Command-Line Options: ASD Regions and Error Type Weighting
2.3.4.1. Targeted Fault Injection Feature x
2.3.4.1.1. Specifying an Error List From the Command Line 2.3.4.1.2. Specifying an Error List From Prompt Mode 2.3.4.1.3. Determining CRAM Bit Locations
1. Mitigating Single Event Upset
2. Debugging Single Event Upset Using the Fault Injection Debugger

1.1. Failure Rates

The Soft Error Rate (SER) or SEU reliability is expressed in Failure in Time (FIT) units. One FIT unit is one soft error occurrence per billion hours of operation.

  • For example, a design with 5,000 FIT experiences a mean of 5,000 SEU events in one billion hours (or 114,155.25 years). Because SEU events are statistically independent, FIT is additive. If a single FPGA has 5,000 FIT, then ten FPGAs have 50,000 FIT (or 50K failures in 114,155.25 years).

Another reliability measurement is the mean time to failure (MTTF), which is the reciprocal of the FIT or 1/FIT.

  • For a FIT of 5,000 in standard units of failures per billion hours, MTTF is:

    1 ÷ (5,000 ÷ 1 Bh)=1 billion ÷ 5,000 = 200,000 hours = 22.83 years

SEU events follow a Poisson distribution and the cumulative distribution function (CDF) for mean time between failures (MTBF) is an exponential distribution. For more information about failure rate calculation, refer to the Intel FPGA Reliability Report.

Neutron SEU incidence varies by altitude, latitude, and other environmental factors. The Intel® Quartus® Prime software provides SEU FIT reports based on compiles for sea level in Manhattan, New York. The JESD89A specification defines the test parameters.

Tip: You can convert the data to other locations and altitudes using calculators, such as those at www.seutest.com. Additionally, you can adjust the SEU rates in your project by including the relative neutron flux (calculated at www.seutest.com) in your project's .qsf file.
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