San Jose, Calif.-based programmable logic supplier Xilinx Inc. has achieved certification for automotive industry quality standard ISO/TS 16949. The ISO/TS 16949 standard enables Xilinx to supply electronic components with the highest levels of quality and reliability throughout the automotive supply chain. Xilinx has already met the rigorous requirements of other world-class quality standards including ISO 9001, TL 9000 and QML.
“Xilinx believes that compliance to this and other leading industry quality systems standards benefits all our customers and partners throughout the entire supply chain through improved product and process quality,” said Evert Wolsheimer, vice president of Quality and Reliability at Xilinx. “Our ISO/TS 16949 certification represents a critical milestone in our strategic quality roadmap and I'm pleased to say we achieved our goal ahead of schedule. Because we already had stringent procedures, strong leadership, and a solid infrastructure in place, the certification process was extremely short and painless.”
According to IMS Research, the PLD total available market (TAM) in the automotive market for in-car audio, infotainment and driver information/telematics is expected to reach $500 million by 2010. “Telematics and infotainment is forcing an industry rethink about the products and systems architected into a typical connected car. New requirements carried across from the consumer industry are forcing the need for flexible architectures that can cope with not only current applications but future and possible unknown features,” said Jon Cropley, senior analyst at IMS Research, a leading market research firm located in London, England. “Combining flexible solutions with ISO/TS 16949 certification will most certainly help Xilinx maintain its leading position as the PLD supplier of choice for automotive manufacturers.”
Xilinx is already the leading PLD provider to the automotive market, with many programmable devices “on the road” in areas such as GPS, infotainment, communication, driver assistance and comfort applications. The new XA product line introduced last fall is the only programmable logic line to meet the Automotive Electronics Council AEC-Q100 qualification flow, full support of the automotive industry's production part approval process (PPAP) provision, and full compliance to the ISO/TS 16949 specification; a key requirement for automotive customers worldwide, according to Xilinx. www.xilinx.com