IBM RAD6000

The RAD6000 radiation-hardened single-board computer, based on the IBM RISC Single Chip CPU, was manufactured by IBM Federal Systems. IBM Federal Systems was sold to Loral, and by way of acquisition, ended up with Lockheed Martin and is currently a part of BAE Systems Electronic Systems. RAD6000 is mainly known as the onboard computer of numerous NASA spacecraft.

RAD6000
The RAD6000 processor
General information
Launched1997
Discontinuedpresent
Marketed byBAE Systems
Designed byIBM
Common manufacturer(s)
Performance
Max. CPU clock rate2.5 MHz to 33 MHz
Cache
L1 cache8 KB
Architecture and classification
ApplicationRadiation hardened for use in spacecraft
Technology node0.5 μm
Instruction setPOWER1
Physical specifications
Cores
  • 1
History
Successor(s)RAD750

History

The radiation-hardening of the original RSC 1.1 million-transistor processor to make the RAD6000's CPU was done by IBM Federal Systems Division working with the Air Force Research Laboratory.

As of June 2008, there are 200 RAD6000 processors in space on a variety of NASA, United States Department of Defense and commercial spacecraft, including:

The computer has a maximum clock rate of 33 MHz and a processing speed of about 35 MIPS.[2] In addition to the CPU itself, the RAD6000 has 128 MB of ECC RAM.[2] A typical real-time operating system running on NASA's RAD6000 installations is VxWorks. The Flight boards in the above systems have switchable clock rates of 2.5, 5, 10, or 20 MHz.

Reported to have a unit cost somewhere between US$200,000 and US$300,000, RAD6000 computers were released for sale in the general commercial market in 1996.

The RAD6000's successor is the RAD750 processor, based on IBM's PowerPC 750.

See also

References

  1. Latest BAE Press Releases
  2. "RAD6000 Space Computers" (PDF). BAE Systems. 2008-06-23. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2009-10-04. Retrieved 2009-09-07.
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