Microchip Technology (Asia General Manager and Korea Representative Byung-Don Han) is contributing to the development of aerospace systems by launching a new radiation-tolerant FPGA for aerospace applications.

Microchip Technology Inc. (NASDAQ: MCHP) today announced that its newly launched RT PolarFire® FPGAs have achieved the first certification milestone, enabling developers to begin developing aerospace systems with increased tolerance to Single Event Upsets (SEUs), superior compute performance and connectivity throughput, and significantly lower power consumption than SRAM-based FPGAs.

To achieve MIL-STD-883 Class B certification, RT PolarFire FPGAs also passed a series of environmental, mechanical, and electrical tests for resistance to the harmful effects of natural elements, defensive status, and operation in space.

Passing these tests will demonstrate the reliability of RT PolarFire FPGAs in space environments and pave the way for qualification to QML Class Q and Class V standards.

The configuration switches built into the RT PolarFire FPGA can withstand total ionizing radiation exposure exceeding 100 kRad, making it suitable for most Earth-orbit satellites and many deep space missions.

Unlike other alternative solutions, FPGAs do not exhibit configuration changes due to radiation. Eliminating the need for radiation mitigation can reduce engineering and material costs.

The RT PolarFire FPGA family builds on Microchip's 60-year aerospace heritage to deliver the compute and connectivity throughput required for modern space missions.

FPGAs consume up to 50% less power than SRAM-based alternatives and meet the demanding performance requirements of on-orbit data processing systems, operating reliably in the harsh radiation environment of space without excessive heat generation.

The unique combination of logic elements (LEs), embedded SRAM, DSP blocks, and 12.7 Gbps transceiver lanes enables higher resolution for passive or active imaging, more channels and finer channel resolution for multispectral and hyperspectral imaging, and more precise scientific measurements using data with noisy remote sources.

The RT PolarFire FPGA can be paired with one or more Microchip solutions to complement each other in modern aerospace systems, including the VSC8541RT Ethernet PHY, the CAN interface USB to UART PHY, clocks and oscillators from Microchip's Clock and Timing Solutions family, and power solutions from Microchip's Analog Power and Interface family.

“Microchip is the leading supplier of QML-certified, high-reliability FPGAs for aerospace applications, and has achieved the highest level of Class V qualification for our FPGAs and other integrated circuits multiple times,” said Shakeel Peera, vice president of marketing for Microchip’s FPGA business unit. “This MIL-STD-883 Class B certification is another major step forward in reducing satellite signal processing congestion, one of the toughest system challenges in spaceflight, while also enabling significantly lower power and higher reliability compared to other FPGA solutions.” “Microchip has started the final steps to qualify its RT PolarFire FPGAs for both QML Class Q and Class V requirements,” said