ESA signs multiple contracts with CAES for space-bound user-selectable SoCs
NewsSeptember 22, 2022
PARIS. The European Space Agency (ESA) has signed multiple contracts with mission-critical electronics company CAES to develop and deliver the GR765 system-on-chip (SoC), the first user-selectable CPU for space, which will enable users to choose between the LEON5 SPARC V8 or NOEL-V RISC-V RV64 processor cores.
According to the official announcement, the GR765 SoC will give designers additional flexibility and functionality while providing the higher processing and bandwidth needed for future space applications while enabling the user to reuse legacy LEON SPARC software or develop new software for the NOEL-V RISC-V architecture. Based on the radiation test on the demo chip, CAES reports the SEU [single-event upset] tolerance for the GR765 to be at least five times harder than the current radiation-hardened processors. CAES also says that the parts will allow the software to transparently continue execution in presence of correctable errors amd extend fault tolerance to peripherals and software libraries.
Michael Harverson, head of the Space Segment Section at ESA, said of the agreements: “The CAES GR765 responds to the ever-increasing demands of telecommunication payload data processing, but also benefits a broad range of other mission-critical applications such as on-board computing."
