Self-contained configuration scrubbing in Xilinx FPGAs for on-detector applications

Abstract Off-detector electronics in trigger and data acquisition systems of High-Energy Physics experiments is often implemented by means of SRAM-based Field Programmable Gate Arrays, due their high-performance in real-time data processing and transfer. The usage of such devices on detector is mostly limited by their sensitivity to radiation-induced upsets in the configuration. In this work, we describe a soft core for correcting these effects in Xilinx devices. The core does not require any external memory for hosting the golden configuration, yet it is able to correct the configuration of an assigned design and its own configuration. In order to prove the effectiveness of our solution, we report results from 62-MeV proton irradiation tests at the INFN Laboratori Nazionali del Sud (Catania, Italy).