Microchip Announces the Expansion of Its Radiation-Hardened Arm Microcontroller (MCU) Family for Space Systems - Seite 2

Relying on the standard Arm Cortex-M7 architecture and the same peripherals as automotive and industrial processors, the SAMRH71 and SAMRH707 provide system development cost and schedule optimization by leveraging standard software and hardware tools from the consumer devices.

The SAMRH71, a radiation-hardened variant of Microchip’s COTS automotive SoC technology, provides a combination of space connectivity interfaces along with high-performance architecture with more than 200 Dhrystone MIPS (DMIPS). Designed for high-level radiation performance, extreme temperatures and high reliability, the SAMRH71’s Arm Cortex-M7 core is coupled with high-bandwidth communication interfaces such as SpaceWire, MIL-STD-1553, CAN FD and Ethernet with IEEE 1588 Generalized Precision Time Protocol (gPTP) capabilities. The device is fully ESCC qualified with support from CNES and compliant with MIL standard Class V and Q high-reliability grades, allowing systems to meet strict compliance requirements.

Extending the portfolio of Microchip’s radiation-hardened Arm Cortex-M7-based MCUs, the SAMRH707 device provides analog functions on top of a >100 DMIPS processor unit with Digital Signal Processing (DSP) capabilities, combined with space connectivity interfaces in a small footprint designed for high-level radiation performance, extreme temperatures and high reliability. The SAMRH707 enables a high level of integration embedding Static Random Access Memory (SRAM) and flash memory, high-bandwidth communication interfaces including SpaceWire, MIL-STD-1553 and CAN FD, along with analog functions such as a 12-bit Analog-to-Digital Converter (ADC) and Digital-to-Analog Converter (DAC).

With space-designed MCUs, MPUs and Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs), Microchip provides critical elements for the development of new systems. Microchip’s total system solutions span space-qualified, radiation-hardened and radiation-tolerant power, timing and clock devices, as well as connectivity and memory solutions.

Development Tools
To speed system design, developers can use the SAMRH71F20-EK and SAMRH707F18-EK evaluation boards. Microchip’s full ecosystem supports its SAMRH707 and SAMRH71 space processors and includes MPLAB Harmony tools suite and third-party software services for space applications. Both Microchip devices are supported by the company’s Integrated Development Environment (IDE) for developing, debugging and software libraries. The devices are supported in MPLAB Harmony version 3.0.