Actel Expands Military-Qualified Flash-Based FPGA Offerings

Extending its low-power leadership and the reliability benefits of its higher density flash-based FPGA technologies, Actel Corporation announced it has added new ProASIC3 and ProASIC3EL FPGAs to its military-qualified product offerings. Verified to operate across the full military temperature range (-55°C to +125°C) and ranging in density from 600,000 to 3-million system gates, the new low-power devices are immune to neutron-induced configuration upsets (“firm errors”), saving board space and minimizing complexity in the system. With lower power, increased gate density, and improved performance, Actel enables designers to eliminate the higher power consumption and failure risks often associated with SRAM-based FPGAs for a wide range of military, aerospace and avionics applications.

“Military and avionics systems, such as mission computers, navigation and guidance systems, and stores management systems often have limited or no forced cooling, requiring electronics with minimal heat dissipation and very low power consumption,” said Ken O’Neill, director of marketing, high-reliability products for Actel Corporation. “Our high-density, military-temperature ProASIC3 and ProASIC3EL devices give designers the increased logic they need for their sophisticated military and aerospace applications. The combination of industry-leading low power and high reliability provides an extremely desirable solution for these systems.”

On a per-gate basis, competitive SRAM-based FPGAs consume 60 percent higher dynamic power and 100 times more static power than ProASIC3L devices. The largest part in the new military-qualified offering, the 3-million gate A3PE3000L, consumes only 310mW at 100MHz and 2.75mW in static mode, making it suitable for thermally-challenged and space-constrained applications. Technology-leading, integrated, secure in-system programming (ISP) support enables valuable field programming upgrades.


About Military-Qualified ProASIC3 and ProASIC3EL FPGAs

Ranging in density from 600,000 to 3-million system gates, Actel's low-power military-temperature ProASIC3 and ProASIC3L FPGAs deliver 64-bit 66 MHz PCI performance. The industry's first FPGAs with on-chip user flash memory, the 1.2V to 1.5V military-qualified devices are immune to neutron-induced firm errors, which are receiving growing recognition in the aerospace community as a significant reliability threat at aviation altitudes. Devices also feature Actel’s unique ultra low-power Flash*Freeze mode, which allows fast switching (within 1µs) between active and static states.

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