FPGAs meet requirements of defence market

A Xilinx product story

Edited by the Electronicstalk editorial team Nov 2, 2010

Xilinx has announced the Spartan-6Q and Virtex-6Q ranges of field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs), which are said to meet the requirements of the aerospace and defence markets.

The ranges include the industry's first defence-grade FPGA based on the low-power Spartan series, providing designers with a flexible device that delivers secure size, weight, power and cost benefits to applications requiring high levels of security and reliability.

Xilinx defence-grade FPGAs are 100-per-cent pin compatible to their commercial equivalent for seamless migration between prototyping and low-rate initial production.

They are fully tested and qualified to operate in extreme temperatures, while the Virtex-6Q device's ruggedised plastic packaging using standard lead content eliminates tin-whiskering concerns and protects against caustic processes.

The introduction of the first defence-grade Spartan range extends Xilinx Targeted Design Platforms for aerospace and defence-grade applications to include secure mobility and similar applications with the same high reliability and long-term support offered by the Virtex series.

Xilinx's Spartan-6Q range meets the needs of military communications (MILCOM) customers who require a low-power, low-cost, secure communications platform, while offering missiles and munitions customers a small form factor in a low-power, secure platform for targeting and data processing in extended temperature ranges.

Spartan-6Q FPGAs are said to be the first in their class to offer a low-power, low-cost Information Assurance (IA) and Anti Tamper (AT) platform, providing increased secure SWaP-C and high reliability.