The French company Alstom is CERN’s provider of FielDrive chips. In
2012, CERN purchased 4’000 FielDrive chips, all coming from the exact
same batch: 1132A.
CERN is interested in validating the batch, by testing at the Fraunhofer
facility.
The different equipment groups have been testing FielDrives under
radiation, always along with other components on their boards.
Although so far there has been no suspicion for its vulnerability up to
400 Gy, because of its critical role in mid 2013 it was decided
to perform dedicated tests on the component alone.
For the tests CERN is providing 15 FielDrive chips, randomly selected amongst those 4’000. The target is confirming that the batch’s TID limit is above 400 Gy.
E.Gousiou, June 2013