MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., 15 Sept. 2008. Officials at Actel Corp. say their company is the first field-programmable gate array (FPGA) vendor to achieve Society of Automotive Engineers(SAE)/AS9100 certification.

The AS9100 certification for its Quality Management System (QMS), which is increasingly required by aerospace suppliers world-wide, certifies that the Actel's processes related to design and manufacture of its low-power, programmable logic solutions have met or exceeded the required standard.

"Actel's SAE/AS9100 certification eases the part acquisition process for our aerospace and avionics customers around the world," says Ken O'Neill director of military products, for Actel. "Further, the achievement of this certification allows our customers to purchase Actel products with the confidence that they are getting the highest quality and reliability while ensuring their cost of ownership goals are met or exceeded."

The AS9100 certification has the benefits of reducing costs and improving reliability by consolidating and standardizing the quality requirements and quality systems employed by suppliers to the avionics industry.

The AS9100 standard was developed by Working Group 11 of ISO TC20 and was supported by the International Aerospace Quality Group in order to satisfy internal, government, and regulatory requirements.

Aerospace and avionics applications require high levels of reliability while typically operating in a harsh environment, Actel officials say. Unlike SRAM-based devices, which experience neutron-induced firm errors, Actel FPGAs offer immunity to neutron-induced configuration upsets, making them better suited to aerospace operational altitudes. Actel's devices are also live at power up, allowing system-critical applications to recover immediately from power out or brownout conditions that can occur from lightning strikes, system or power supply glitches, neutron-induced system resets, and RF interference.

Actel offers low-power flash- and antifuse-based FPGAs for use in aerospace and avionics applications. Actel's AS9100 certification can be viewed at http://www.actel.com/documents/AS9100-2004_Certificate.pdf. More information about Actel's aerospace and avionics offerings can be found at http://www.actel.com/products/solutions/milaero/default.aspx.