Actel, Space Electronics Announce Strategic Alliance; Actel expands industry-leading high reliability antifuse FPGA product line.SUNNYVALE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb. 17, 1998--Actel Corporation (NASDAQ NASDAQ in full National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations U.S. market for over-the-counter securities. Established in 1971 by the National Association of Securities Dealers (NASD), NASDAQ is an automated quotation system that reports on :ACTL ACTL American College of Trial Lawyers (Irvine, California) ACTL Access Carrier Terminal Location ACTL Activation Library ACTL Automated Compatibility Test Laboratory ACTL Association Cultural Turkey-Luxembourg ) today announced that it has signed a memorandum of understanding A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) is a legal document describing a bilateral or multilateral agreement between parties. It expresses a convergence of will between the parties, indicating an intended common line of action and may not imply a legal commitment. with Space Electronics, Inc. (SEi) to develop and market a new line of high-reliability, radiation-tolerant Field Programmable Gate Array See FPGA. (FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Array) A type of gate array that is programmed in the field rather than in a semiconductor fab. Containing up to hundreds of thousands of gates, there are a variety of FPGA architectures on the market. ) products. The agreement calls for the two companies to link Actel's commercial FPGA products with SEi's RAD-PAK package shielding technology, with the first products expected by the second quarter of this year. SEi's technology can significantly increase the total dose survivability of commercial FPGA devices. Actel is currently accepting RFQs for the new product line, which will include the 8,000-gate RP1280A in a 172-pin ceramic quad flatpak (CQFP See QFP. ) and the 10,000-gate RP14100A in a 256-pin CQFP. Both products will be built to both Class B and Class S processing flow. The new radiation-tolerant FPGAs provide the survivability and cost-effectiveness sought by the growing commercial satellite market, which supports such widely-used telecom applications as cellular phones, pagers, and global positioning systems (GPS). According to the Commercial Satellite Advisory Committee (COMSAC), there will be 30 satellite launches per year over the next 5 years, indicating a definite market for the use of radiation tolerant FPGAs. Additional applications include satellites for military use, deep space probes and planetary missions, and ground-based military applications in which radiation survivability is required. "This strategic alliance adds to our growing line of high reliability FPGAs. The new products will find their niche in applications where radiation tolerance is a priority, but where guaranteed radiation performance is not a necessity," said Mike Sarpa, product marketing manager Actel. With this strategic alliance, Actel provides the industry's broadest spectrum of FPGA radiation characteristics and price points. A number of Actel devices, using only standard packaging technology, exhibit total dose survivability in the 5-50Krad (Si) range. Those same devices, packed in SEi's RAD-PAK, are expected to withstand total radiation doses rates in the 10-100Krad (Si) range. For applications that must withstand dose rates up to 300Krads, Actel offers its RadHard devices which feature capacities ranging from 2,000 to 8,000 gates and performance of up to 20 MHz over the military temperature range. "This agreement with Actel is an outgrowth of our continued confidence in an expanded market for radiation tolerant devices of all sorts. This alliance will benefit commercial satellite builders and is another example of SEi's technology enabling commercial components to be used in space applications. Our move into the programmable logic market is a big step for our company," said David Czajkowski, Marketing Manager SEi . Committed to supporting all aspects of the high reliability market, Actel provides HiRel devices for three of its current product families: ACT 1, ACT 2, and ACT 3. Devices are offered pre-tested to either the commercial or military temperature ranges, as well as to full MIL-STD-883 compliance. Additionally, Actel will be introducing new military grade devices in the 1200XL and 3200DX families within the next year. Software support The new radiation tolerant product line will be supported by Actel's Designer Series Development Tools which include improved ACTmap VHDL (VHSIC Hardware Description Language) A hardware description language (HDL) used to design electronic systems at the component, board and system level. VHDL allows models to be developed at a very high level of abstraction. synthesis, DirectTime place and route, fully deterministic and controllable timing, and easy design reuse. The devices are also supported by a variety of leading third-party software packages, including Synopsys' Design Compiler/FPGA Compiler, Mentor Graphics' Autologic, Exemplar Logic's Galileo, Cadence's Synergy, IST's ASYL, Viewlogic's ViewSynthesis, and Synplicity's Synplify synthesis tools. Pricing and Availability The RP1280A is expected to carry fifty piece pricing of $4,300, while the RP14100A will be introduced at a 50 piece price of $5,700. About Actel Actel is dedicated to providing logic designers with the capability and confidence to successfully move up to higher complexity designs. The company is the world's leading supplier of antifuse-based field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) and associated software development tools. FPGAs are used by designers of communications, computer, medical, military/aerospace, industrial control, and other electronic systems to differentiate their products and get them to market faster. Actel is traded on the NASDAQ National Market under the symbol ACTL and is located at 955 East Arques Avenue, Sunnyvale, California 94086-4533. Telephone: 408/739-1010. Internet: http://www.actel.com. About SEi Space Electronics Inc., located in San Diego, California “San Diego” redirects here. For other uses, see San Diego (disambiguation). San Diego is a coastal Southern California city located in the southwestern corner of the continental United States. As of 2006, the city has a population of 1,256,951. , is an established provider of microelectronics to the space industry. Founded in March of 1992, SEI is employee-owned. Customers include Lockheed Martin, Hughes, Jet Propulsion Laboratory “JPL” redirects here. For other uses, see JPL (disambiguation). Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) is a NASA research center located in the cities of Pasadena and La Cañada Flintridge, near Los Angeles, California, USA. , TRW TRW The Real World (TV reality show) TRW The Right Way TRW Tactical Reconnaissance Wing TRW The Retriever Weekly (University of Maryland, Baltimore, MD) TRW Thompson Ramo Wooldridge Inc , and virtually every other major space contractor. SEI's parts are operating in space on the Hubble Space Telescope Hubble Space Telescope (HST), the first large optical orbiting observatory. Built from 1978 to 1990 at a cost of $1.5 billion, the HST (named for astronomer E. P. Hubble) was expected to provide the clearest view yet obtained of the universe. , Global Positioning System, CRRES CRRES Combined Release and Radiation Effects Satellite CRRES Combined Release Radiation Effects Satellite CRRES Coordinated Radiation Release Satellite Space Probe, as well as GEOTAIL GEOTAIL Geomagnetic Tail Laboratory , ISTP ISTP International Solar Terrestrial Physics (platform) ISTP Index to Scientific & Technical Proceedings ISTP International Symposium on Transport Phenomena ISTP Institute for Sustainability and Technology Policy , POLAR, SUSSI, TOMS, and XTE satellites, the Mars Pathfinder, and Cassini. -0- Note to Editors: The Actel name and logo are registered trademarks of the Actel Corporation. RAD-PAK is a registered trademark of SEi. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. CONTACT: Actel Corporation Mike Sarpa (reader contact) or Chuck Byers (media contact) 408/522-4598 charles.byers@actel.com http://www.actel.com or Walt & Company Sandy Fewkes/Kristin Jones, 408/496-0900 sfewkes@walt.com kjones@walt.com |
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