A Radiation Hardened Housekeeping Slave Node (RH-HKSN) ASIC

This projects seeks to continue the development of the Radiation Hardened Housekeeping Slave Node (RH-HKSN) ASIC. The effort has taken parallel paths by implementing the concept as (1) a custom ASIC re-using robust in-house rad-hard IP in a low-cost CMOS process and also (2) in a new rad-hard mixed-signal structured ASIC developed by TRIAD Semiconductor. The device will serve as NASA’s low-power data acquisition system-on-a-chip suitable for miniaturized instruments, CubeSats and spacecraft housekeeping data collection. It will operate as a remote terminal unit (RTU) for standalone housekeeping/telemetry collection. A first version will contain a 16 channel analog multiplexer (expandable to 32 externally) and will be able to measure platinum resistance thermistors (PRTs), total ionizing dose radiation (using external RadFETs) and voltages. It will have useful circuits such as high resolution digital-to-analog converters, bandgap references and programmable general purpose I/O. The device will implement multiple serial interfaces including Serial-to-Parallel Interface (SPI) and I²C. The device will improve efficiency by reducing the size of instrument and spacecraft housekeeping electronics by up to 25-30% by combining analog, digital and mixed-signal functions on a single radiation hardened silicon die with serial interfaces to reduce the number of wires. It also reduces mass, volume, power and potentially reduce cost/time by replacing portions C&DH FPGA development.