Good Afternoon,
My name is James Moorcroft. I am an electrical engineer working at BWXT NEC in Peterborough Ontario. We provide services and equipment in support of Candu nuclear reactors around the world.
The purpose of my correspondence is to inquire regarding your intelligent programmable device product line that is radiation hardened. I have a need for such a device (FPGA, PLC, controller or other) that can operate in a radiated environment.
My operating conditions are 5 x 105 RADs over a thirty-year period. The equipment, however, can be installed within a metallic cabinet, can be further encapsulated within some sort of lead-lined junction box and maintenance/replacement periods can be shortened to accommodate a lower rad value if any equipment has a smaller TID capability.
The main type of radiation is Gamma. There are pressure and temperature requirements as well but none of the space-based equipment I saw in your catalogs seemed to have any issue meeting with these parameters.
Ideally, I’d like some sort of board-level device with some sort of network interface for maintenance purposes. The device will be used for signal conditioning purposes to convert analog signals to digital ones. 12-15 signals total would need to be accepted and converted to equivalent digital outputs. These signals might be mv/V or 4-20 mA, that is still being defined.
We also have another design that is purely controls-based accepting I/O from rad-hardened sensing devices (temperature sensors, pressure sensors, etc…) and controlling compressors and fans through relays contacts or other secondary devices. The device would be accepting 5-10 I/O points and drive 5-10 devices, indirectly through relays and other secondary circuits.
Given these parameters, what device or family of devices would you recommend I look at within your product catalog to meet my requirements? For budgetary purposes, what kind of lead time and cost would I be looking at for this device/family of devices?
Thank you,
James Moorcroft, P.Eng
