NASA Advisory NA-GSFC-2006-01 Request for Information and Lessons Learned

1. NASA Advisory NA-GSFC-2006-01 Request for Information and Lessons Learned Dr. Kusum Sahu, Code 562.0 Bruce Meinhold, MEI Technologies, Inc. GSFC Code 562.0, Parts, Packaging and Assembly Office

2. NA-GSFC-2006-01

3. Advisory Background • NASA, our NASA partners, and other space community members collect a great deal of valuable information about many types of EEE parts. This information has no common collection or dissemination point. • When specific part problems occur, such as the Actel FPGA antifuse or the Hitachi EEPROM bit failures, the perceived failure rate is very low. • From a single project/program perspective, the anomalous part is replaced, FA is performed (if flight), and a decision is made based on that one failure. • When viewed from a global perspective, many individual, benign anomalies were suddenly recognized as a major problem. • Lack of global perspective led to many individual approaches for analyzing and categorizing the anomaly. • Cost and schedule impacts were large at both the project and NASA levels.

4. Information Requested by Advisory • Reference Block 12, reproduced here: • NASA GSFC kindly requests other NASA programs and projects to share with the Advisory Technical Point of Contact (see block 13) all DPA and Failure Reports on FPGAs and non-volatile memory devices, from both flight and engineering model usage along with lessons learned that can benefit the community. Non-NASA organizations may also send in their reports. Note that prior to dissemination on the NASA Office of Logic Design web site, appropriate care (i.e. deleting items such as contractor names) will be taken. • Advisory Technical Point of Contact (block 13) is Rich Katz, Code 564.0, NASA Office of Logic Design.

5. How the Data will be Used • Note about the security of all data supplied • Raw data will not be visible anywhere on the NASA Office of Logic Design web interface. • Original data will be reviewed and analyzed, in cooperation with Advisory Technical POC, by Code 562.0, Parts, Packaging and Assembly Office. • DPA information such as parts evaluated, parts passing, parts failing, reason for failures, and anomalous (but non-rejectable) characteristics will be coded and compiled. • FA information such as the type of failure, number of failures, flight or engineering, part history, Manufacturer, and lot/date code will be coded and recorded. • Trend analysis will be performed on the data, using these factors to look for emerging or repeat patterns. • Compiled, coded pass/fail information will be accessible through a web interface on the NASA Office of Logic Design web interface.

6. How the Data will be Used (cont) • A modified version (see below) of the original supplied data will also be accessible through the NASA Office of Logic Design web interface. • All identifying information, such as contract number, contractor/agency name, or other identifying information, will be removed from all raw data prior to being posted online.

7. In Conclusion • Handling of engineering model parts will likely require a change of procedure for many. However, as engineering parts often contain flight-like die, there may be valuable information to be gained from those early failures. • There is no restriction on the suppliers of the data for this advisory. We encourage the entire space and high reliability community to participate. • All supplied data, albeit scrubbed to remove identities, will be available for everyone to review and evaluate.