First measurement of single event upsets in the readout control FPGA of the ALICE TPC detector

This paper presents the first measurement of Single Event Upsets (SEUs) in the configuration memory of the readout control FPGA of the ALICE Time Projection Chamber. The measurements have been performed during pp collisions at a center-of-mass energy of (S)1/2 = 7 TeV in the period from May to August 2011. A linear dependence was observed between the number of SEUs and the luminosity seen by ALICE. In addition the spatial distribution of SEUs have been analysed for the 216 FPGA installed on the two end-plates of the TPC detector.