Evolvable Hardware System at Extreme Low Temperatures

This paper describes circuit evolutionary experiments at extreme low temperatures, including the test of all system components at this extreme environment (EE). In addition to hardening-by-process and hardeningby-design, “hardening-by-reconfiguration ”, when applicable, could be used to mitigate drijts, degradation, or damage on electronic devices (chips) in EE, by using re-con$gurable devices and an adaptive selfreconJiguration of their circuit topology. Conventional circuit design exploits device characteristics within a certain temperaturehadiation range; when that is exceeded, the circuit function degrades. On a recon.gurable device, although component parameters change in EE, a new circuit design, suitable for new parameter values, may be mapped into the reconJigurable structure to recover the initial circuit function. This paper demonstrates this technique for circuit evolution and recovery at liquid nitrogen temperatures (-196.6 “c). In addition, preliminary tests are performed to assess the survivability limitations of the evolutionary processor at extreme low temperatures.