SBIR-STTR Award

Satellite and space systems designers of long duration lunar and planetary missions continue to find it difficult to provide the ever increasing amount of memory considering the impact on platform size and weight. Under SBIR contract NNG04CA25C NxGen Electronics Inc has developed a radiation hardened Ferro Electric Random Access (FRAM) memory which will have 2Mb density and radiation characteristics useful for many satellite and space applications. The design and building of prototype chips is being completed under this contract. However, funding was insufficient for full radiation characterization. In addition, feedback from potential customers, including JPL and other prime contractors, indicates that even more density would be useful in the same footprint. NxGen has been developing rugged, high reliability, light weight 3D memory stacking technology which would improve the density over a monolithic package by a factor of 8. Although other technologies, such as MRAM, are being developed with the promise of high density, our understanding is that NASA/JPL would find the FRAM technology superior from a number of perspectives including density, performance and cost. Under sub-topic O1.05, Reconfigurable & Reprogrammable Communications Systems, sub-sub-topic, "Component Technology", we believe this proposal qualifies as novel advancement in memory density.

Purpose of this effort was to offer a novel solution to the pressing need for radiation tolerant memory for the demanding satellite and space probe worldwide community. The effort included radiation testing of the Ferro Electric Random Access (FRAM) memory developed under NASA/JPL contract NNG04CA25C, and the design of stacked versions resulting in up to 16Mb of storage in a footprint smaller than a standard TSOP. The work done resulted in a number of tested samples of 2Mb FRAM die fabricated using the 0.35 um process at Fujitsu, and designed by Cellis Semiconductor. The packaged parts were electrically tested then subjected to radiation testing. The enclosed radiation test program conducted and the successful results are contained herein. For higher density configurations, a preliminary design of stacks in 2, 4, and 8 high die was done using our µZ Ball StackREG technology, offering a total of up to 16Mb of addressable memory.