Microchip Lands Deal to Develop New Spaceflight Processor for NASA

Microchip Technology is teaming up with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory to develop a high-performance, space-qualified processor to power the agency’s future space missions.

The company landed a $50 million contract to design and manufacture the so-called High-Performance Spaceflight Computing (HPSC) processor that will replace the decades-old, space-grade chips currently used in NASA spacecraft. The goal is to create a radiation-hardened system-on-chip (SoC) that offers 100X more computational capacity than the current state-of-the-art. Ideally, it will expend the same amount of power.

NASA said the space-grade processor could potentially fly in virtually every future space flight, ranging from planetary exploration to lunar and Mars missions to satellites or other space-bound systems in orbit.

As the U.S. space agency delves deeper into the solar system, it requires computational hardware that can carry out heavy navigation and communication workloads on everything from spacecraft to robotic rovers.

NASA explained that upgrading the processors at the heart of its spacecraft was long overdue. “Our current spaceflight computers were developed almost 30 years ago," said Wesley Powell, principal technologist for advanced avionics at NASA. “While they have served past missions well, future NASA missions demand significantly increased onboard computing capabilities and reliability."

He added, “The new computing processor will provide the required advances in performance, fault tolerance, and flexibility to meet these future mission needs.” The contract is part of NASA’s HPSC program.

NASA said Microchip's HPSC processor is expected to introduce major hardware innovations across the board. It would take around three years to design and manufacture the new platform to NASA's specs, according to the company.

In addition to the performance boost, the chip will offer Ethernet networking, AI processing, and connectivity support in a highly secure package that also keeps power to a minimum. Fault tolerance—the ability to safely continue to operate even one component if the system fails—will also be a priority.

Microchip is bringing more flexibility into the fold, too. The new processor architecture promises to allow for processing power to ebb and flow—to support the high-speed data movement and processing needed to land a spacecraft on another planet, for instance—depending on the situation. Different parts of the HPSC will be able to turn off when not in use to save electrical power, which is often in short supply on spacecraft.

Furthermore, the HPSC will be designed to handle the hazards of spaceflight. The chips in satellites and other space-bound systems must withstand harsh vibrations and shocks that can cause damage during the launch phase.

These components also face major thermal-management challenges in orbit and further out in space. They have to be protected against wide temperature fluctuations that cut into how long they can survive in space.

But in terms of component reliability in space, the top challenge is radiation. Heavy doses of radiation over the long term can permanently damage and hurt the performance of the hardware over the long term. Damage due to radiation could even lead to the catastrophic failure of the processor. Thus, under these conditions, off-the-shelf processors will not last long before suffering a serious malfunction.

Microchip said HPSC will be deployed by partners in a series of rugged radiation-tolerant single-board computers (SBCs).

NASA explained that Microchip plans to put a lot of research and development (R&D) resources into finishing the contract. Those R&D dollars may trickle down to its other commercial customers. The HPSC could be used in areas requiring the same mission-critical edge computing needs as spacecraft, such as industrial automation.

Microchip has been a major player in space-grade chips for decades, ranging from radiation-hardened MCUs and FPGAs to a wide range of networking, memory, and power electronics for satellites and other spacecraft.

NASA said the HPSC could also be tapped by other U.S. agencies for other projects, e.g., new satellite systems.