Radiation testing campaign results for understanding the suitability of FPGAs in detector electronics

SRAM based Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) have been rarely used in High Energy Physics (HEP) due to their sensitivity to radiation. The last generation of commercial FPGAs based on 28 nm feature size and on Silicon On Insulator (SOI) technologies are more tolerant to radiation to the level that their use in front-end electronics is now feasible. FPGAs provide re-programmability, high-speed computation and fast data transmission through the embedded serial transceivers. They could replace custom application specific integrated circuits in front end electronics in locations with moderate radiation field. The use of a FPGA in HEP experiments is only limited by our ability to mitigate single event effects induced by the high energy hadrons present in the radiation field. - Highlights: • Radiation campaign on Xilinx Kintex 7 FPGAs. • Use of FPGAs in high energy physics. • Evaluation of configuration RAM and block RAM parameters after irradiation.