VA5 Family of Rad-Hard and Rad-Tolerant Microcontrollers
VORAGO Technologies
The VA5 family comprises VORAGO's first generation of dual-core Arm® Cortex®-M55 microcontrollers, available in radiation-hardened (RH) and radiation-tolerant (RT) versions, designed for extreme space, defense, and autonomous applications.
Technical specifications
- Cores
- Dual Arm® Cortex®-M55 Cores with Integrated Floating-Point Unit (FPU), Memory Protection Unit (MPU), Serial Wire Debug (SWD) & JTAG
- Non-volatile memory (NVM)
- 256 KB
- On-chip double word sram
- 512 KB
- On-chip byte sram
- 128 KB
- Memory architecture features
- EDAC & scrub engine for error resilience
- Peripherals
- Ethernet MAC with QoS, 2× SpaceWire, 4× CAN FD, 4× UART, 4× SPI, 4× I²C
- Motor control & analog/digital interfaces
- 4× Motor Controllers, ADCs, DACs, comparators, timers, and watchdogs
- Operating temperature
- –55 °C to +125 °C
- Packaging
- Plastic 256 BGA or Ceramic 216 QFP
- Radiation hardened - total ionizing dose (TID)
- > 200 krad(Si) with FRAM
- Radiation hardened - single-event latch-up (SEL) immunity
- to LET > 110 MeV*cm2/mg
- Radiation tolerant - total ionizing dose (TID)
- > 50 krad(Si) with FRAM
- Radiation tolerant - single-event latch-up (SEL) immunity
- to LET > 60 MeV*cm2/mg
- Engineering samples availability
- Q3 2026
- Development kits availability
- Q1 2027
- Qualification samples availability
- Q2 2027
About
The VA5 family represents VORAGO’s first generation of dual-core Arm® Cortex®-M55 microcontrollers, offered in both radiation-hardened (RH) and radiation-tolerant (RT) versions. These space-grade MCUs are purpose-built for the extreme demands of space, defense, and autonomous missions, combining dual 32-bit cores with robust radiation mitigation, advanced fault tolerance, and power-efficient processing. The VA5 RH series, engineered with VORAGO’s proprietary HARDSIL® technology, delivers latch-up immunity and maximum resilience in the most severe radiation environments, suitable for deep space and long-duration missions. The VA5 RT series provides extended reliability for missions with lower total dose requirements, offering robust performance without the full requirements of RH designs. Both RH and RT options operate reliably in particle-rich, extreme environments.
Key features include architectural safeguards for continuous mission assurance, such as EDAC-protected SRAM and NVM, dual watchdog timers, and a recovery watchdog. Designed to integrate securely with spacecraft, defense electronics, and autonomous systems, the VA5 family provides a trusted foundation for mission-critical applications demanding performance and survivability. The devices are engineered to thrive in radiation-heavy and temperature-extreme environments, leveraging Dual Interlocking Cells (DICE), Triple-Mode Redundancy (TMR), and robust EDAC with scrub technology to ensure continuous operation. Featuring dual 32-bit Arm® Cortex®-M55 cores with integrated Floating-Point Units (FPU), the VA5 family provides the processing capability needed for complex real-time control and system management tasks. Its robust peripheral set includes Ethernet MAC with QoS, dual SpaceWire interfaces, motor controllers, and extensive analog and digital I/O, supporting applications from satellite altitude control to propulsion management and robotics. With clock speeds up to 200 MHz and low-latency memory access, it delivers efficient performance for deterministic control under harsh conditions.
Documentation
No public datasheet yet — request the datasheet / ICD from the supplier.