FPGAs Conform To Military Specs

Approved by Defense Supply Center Columbus and QML certified, the single-chip SX72A and SX32A antifuse, field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) are said to offer nonvolatility, flexibility, security, and reliability for use in military, aerospace and avionics applications. The A54SX32A and A54SX72A, under standard military drawing (SMD) numbers 5962-015180 and 5962-005430, respectively, provide up to 72,000 typical gates or 36,000 application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) gates. Other features of the FPGAs include a system performance up to 250 MHz with guaranteed support for 33 MHz PCI at case temperatures ranging from -55°C to 125°C. The SX-A devices are designed for use with the company’s intellectual property (IP) cores, which include CorePCI and Core1553BRT. In terms of design security, the FPGAs report levels of design security beyond SRAM-based FPGAs and conventional ASIC solutions. There are no configuration boot PROMs or bitstreams that can be intercepted and decoded, thereby preventing copying or reverse engineering of the design. Qualified production quantities are available now and software support is provided by the Libero integrated design environment. ACTEL CORP., Sunnyvale, CA. (888) 992-2835.