Microchip Technology’s RT PolarFire FPGA-ES reportedly reached 100 kilorads of total-dose tolerance and demonstrated linear-energy-transfer immunity to 80 MeV·cm²/mg in January 2026. The 28-nanometre RT PolarFire platform uses radiation-hard-by-design cells; the market report identifies 100 kilorads as a baseline for 15-year geostationary missions and records 14 satellite design wins during 2025.
For lunar systems, 100 kilorads provides a meaningful radiation-survivability benchmark for electronics exposed to solar-particle events and long-duration background radiation, but it is not a complete lunar qualification. Total-ionizing-dose performance must be assessed alongside single-event upsets, single-event functional interrupts, latch-up, displacement damage, thermal cycling, vacuum operation, electromagnetic compatibility, and fault recovery. Reconfigurability could enable in situ replacement of failed logic functions, improving maintainability and reducing dependence on spare hardware.
The Ark team should track RT PolarFire qualification data, especially heavy-ion and proton cross-sections, configuration-memory protection, latch-up thresholds, radiation-induced timing drift, and tested mission lifetimes. Establish a lunar environmental test programme covering regolith shielding configurations and solar-event profiles; evaluate the device for redundant, watchdog-supervised control nodes; and require radiation-tolerant FPGA designs to support authenticated scrubbing, safe-mode fallback, independent power isolation, and long-term component availability.