Disposable Cars?

Recently another FPGA supplier announced their first family of AEC-Q100 automotive qualified devices.  They received quite a bit of press due to their testing to automotive Grade-1 that equates to a temperature range of -40C to +135C Junction.  According to the datasheet these devices have a Maximum Tj of +150C.  This sounds very attractive to automotive customers looking to use FPGA devices in under the hood applications.

I thought, “Wow, this is impressive”.  My initial excitement was soon dashed when I looked through the datasheet and found their HTR (High Temperature Data Retention) results.  This is the amount of time the internal Flash memory is not expected to have a failure due to flash cell leakage.   Operating these devices at +70C provides an HTR value of +100 years, however at +125C the HTR value drops to 6.2 years and at under the hood temperature of +135C the value is 4.4 years (+150C = 2.2 years).

For some consumers an engine or brake system failure after 4.4 years of service may not be an issue, but for others it can be a life-threatening situation.

The Lattice FPGA temperature ratings are (Grade 2, -40C to +125C Tj) and the HTR results for Lattice Flash based devices is greater than 100 years at full temperature.  This means almost no chance of an automotive system malfunction due to Flash memory retention issues.  I know that I want any vehicle my family travels in to continue to operate even in high temperature conditions.  Lattice FPGA devices provide me that peace of mind.