Reliability Analysis of Ethernet-Based Solutions for Data Transmission in the CERN Radiation Environment

• Published in: IEEE transactions on nuclear science 2020-07, Vol.67 (7), p.1614-1622
• Main Authors: Gnemmi, G., Tsiligiannis, G., Masi, A., Danzeca, S.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Accelerated tests; CERN; Data transmission; Ethernet; Fabrics; Field programmable gate arrays; field-programmable gate array (FPGA); flash; Industrial applications; Large Hadron Collider; Microprogramming; mixed field; Programmable controllers; Protocols; protons; Radiation; Random access memory; Reliability; Reliability analysis; single-event effects; System on chip; system on chip (SoC); Task analysis
• ISSN: 0018-9499; 1558-1578
• DOI: 10.1109/TNS.2020.2989553

The necessity for a radiation-tolerant communication link, compatible with a wide range of devices, has prompted the study of different solutions than those currently employed at CERN. With Ethernet being one of the most established communication protocols for commercial and industrial applications, most of the efforts were concentrated toward that direction. To evaluate the feasibility of using this protocol in the radiation environment of CERN, several Ethernet-based solutions have been implemented based on a system on chip (SoC), in which a flash-based field-programmable gate array (FPGA) and a \mu controller coexist, making the system highly configurable. The proposed solutions are qualified at the system level using accelerated testing means, in order to compare their performances. The results of this study are then used to estimate the reliability of the different solutions using classic models, considering a variety of different installation scenarios inside the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) tunnel.