Observations of single-event upsets in non-hardened high-density SRAMs in Sun-synchronous orbit

Observations of single-event upset (SEU) activity in nonhardened static and dynamic RAMs of both low (16-kb) and high (256-kb, 1-Mb), density are presented for a family of small spacecraft in low-earth, near-polar, Sun-synchronous orbits. The observation of single-event multiple-bit upset (MBU) in these devices is discussed, and the implications of such events for error-protection coding schemes are examined. Contrary to expectations, the 1-Mb static RAMs (SRAMs) are more resilient to SEU than the 256-kb SRAMs, and one type of commercial 1-Mb SRAM shows a particularly low error rate.>