Single event effects actel AX FPGA

ACTEL and NASA performed irradiation tests at Brookhaven National Laboratory on the AX1000 component of the new ACTEL FPGA family "Axcelerator". The characteristics of these FPGAs are attractive and make them good candidates for the Front-End of the LHCb Calorimeters. The results of the measurements done at BNL are used to determine the resistance of the AX in the environment of the Calorimeter electronics. If mitigation techniques are used (triple voting or horizontal and vertical parity), no major worry is expected in spite of the safety factors applied in the evaluation. In this case and at maximum, a few bit errors could be observed per year on the full Calorimeter system.