PCoSA: A product error correction code for use in memory devices targeting space applications

The radiation sensitivity of integrated memory cells increases dramatically as the supply voltage decreases. Although there are some Error Correcting Code (ECC) studies to prevent faults on memories used in space applications, there is no consensus on choosing the best ECC product-type with two-dimensional Hamming to mitigate data faults in memory. This work introduces the Product Code for Space Applications (PCoSA), an ECC product based on Hamming and parity in both rows and columns for use in memory with space-application reliability requirements. The potentialities of PCoSA were evaluated by injecting (i) thirty-six error patterns already available in the literature and (ii) all possible combinations of up to seven bitflips. PCoSA has corrected all cases of the thirty-six error patterns, and it has a correction rate of 100% for any three bitflips, 82.67% for four bitflips, and 69.7% for five bitflips.