Recent Results for Commercial Microprocessor Testing

Commercial microprocessors could be useful for space missions that do not require radiation-hardened microprocessors. For these missions, commercial microprocessors provide a lower power and less costly solution for data processing than a radiation-hardened microprocessor. Commercial microprocessors are more likely to have issues with single-event effects (SEEs) that could make it difficult to compute without faults. It is possible through part selection and radiation testing to eliminate commercial microprocessors with the most destructive radiation effects. This paper presents data on recent testing of several commercial microprocessors.