My hello world includes this white paper that I found from former Actel titled “FPGA Reliability and the Sunspot Cycle“.
Of the most important points of this paper is the dimension-susceptibility relation of FPGAs for space applications. Smaller component dimensions translate to reduced possibility of particle hits which should make nanoelectronics more radiation-hardened. However, this is not the case, as one of the goals of miniaturization is power reduction. Components operating on lower voltages are more prone to radiation effects since smaller introduced charges are able to upset their operation more easily. The paper also mentions the inevitable conclusion that despite the reduced component size, their large number on the same board balances out the radiation-hardening hypothesis expressed above, making power reduction the most prominent susceptibility cause.
Basically, it concludes that miniaturization trends dictate radiation tolerance tests even for sea-level usage.
The nanoelectronics buff 