A Highly Robust and Low-Power Flip-Flop Cell With Complete Double-Node-Upset Tolerance for Aerospace Applications

作者：Yan, Aibin^*; He, Yuting; Niu, Xiaoxiao; Cui, Jie; Ni, Tianming; Huang, Zhengfeng; Girard, Patrick; Wen, Xiaoqing

来源：IEEE Design & Test, 2023, 40(4): 34-41.

DOI：10.1109/MDAT.2023.3267747

• Latches
• Flip-flops
• Delays
• Transistors
• Microelectronics
• Power dissipation
• Switches
• Low power electronics
• Radiation protection
• circuit hardening
• flip-flop reliability
• soft error tolerance
• low power

This article proposes a robust and low power flip-flop cell with complete double-node-upset (DNU) tolerance for aerospace applications. The proposed cell is constructed from a master latch and a slave latch. The master latch comprises two C-elements as well as one clock-controlled C-element; the slave latch is similar to the master but has an extra keeper to avoid high-impedance state of the output-level C-element. The proposed cell can provide complete DNU-tolerance while reducing power dissipation by 65% on average when compared with existing radiation-hardened flip-flop cells.