In this regard, it has now added IEC 61508 SIL 3 certification packages for two other families of its FPGA SoC (System-on-Chip) and FPGA.
“Microchip’s FPGA families have always held a broad and strong position in the industrial market and are recognized for the high reliability and safety of our non-volatile FPGA technologies,” said Bruce Weyer, corporate vice president of Microchip’s FPGA business unit. “We also have a long track record of certifying our products and tools to IEC 61508 SIL 3 and other safety specifications to make the certification process for end-user equipment much easier for our customers. The addition of these packages for our
low-power SmartFusion 2 SoC FPGA and IGLOO 2 FPGA is a natural extension for industrial customers designing high-reliability products for smart grids, automation controllers, process analyzers, and other safety-critical applications.”
Microchip's security packages are based on the best-in-class, Flash-based, SEU-immune FPGA architecture of the SmartFusion 2 and IGLOO 2, certified by independent security assessor TÜV Rhineland®. These packages include certification for Libero® SoC Design Suite v11.8 Service Pack 4 and associated Microchip development tools, as well as 28 cores of Intellectual Property (IP), security manuals, documentation, and device datasheets. A TÜV Rhineland security certificate is also included.
Microchip also helps protect its customers' long-term certification investments by applying customer-defined obsolescence criteria. Under these criteria, Microchip commits to producing devices used in a certified system as long as customers wish to place orders and Microchip can obtain all the sub-elements of a device. This increases confidence that certification will not need to be repeated and also reduces the risk of a device unexpectedly reaching the end of its life, requiring redesign or changes to the tooling workflow.
About the SmartFusion 2 and IGLOO 2 FPGA SoCs:
Unlike SRAM-based (Static Random Access Memory) FPGAs, Microchip's Flash-based SmartFusion 2 and IGLOO 2 FPGAs eliminate the need for Triple Module Redundancy (TMR), which increases overall system costs. The SmartFusion 2 FPGA SoC is the only device that integrates an FPGA fabric, an Arm® Cortex®-M3 processor, and programmable analog circuitry. The low-density IGLOO 2 device consumes up to 50% less power than other similar devices and is ideal for general-purpose applications that require more resources than other FPGAs can provide.
Availability:
Microchip's security packages for its SmartFusion 2 and IGLOO 2 devices are sold through the Microchip Sales and Customer Service website. All information about Microchip's FPGA families is available here.
