LEON: the space chip that Europe built

Just like home computers, the sophisticated capabilities of today's space missions are made possible by the power of their processor chips. ESA's coming Alphasat telecom satellite, the Proba-V microsatellite, the Earth-monitoring Sentinel family and the BepiColombo mission to Mercury are among the first missions to use an advanced 32-bit microprocessor - engineered and built in Europe. All of them incorporate the new LEON2-FT chip, commercially known as the AT697. Engineered to operate within spacecraft computers, this microprocessor is manufactured by Atmel in France but originally designed by ESA. To give an idea of the kind of complex factors involved in its design, the 'FT' in its name stands for 'fault tolerant', meaning it can withstand the random memory 'bit flips' due to space radiation (, see the link: LEON: The making of a microprocessor for space ). This year's Proba-V microsatellite - surveying daily vegetation growth on a daily basis for a community of scientists previously served by the Spot satellites - will use the AT697 processor in its main flight computer. And while Alphasat employs an older ERC32 chip in its flight computer, a LEON2-FT will be operating a space environment-monitoring experiment aboard the satellite.