On January 31, CAES, a major supplier of mission-critical electronics for aerospace and military applications, and Lattice Semiconductor Corporation, the pioneer in low power programmable FPGAs, announced an agreement under which CAES would certify and market radiation-tolerant Lattice FPGAs for space and satellite applications. As a result of the agreement, CAES will supply next-generation reconfigurable processing systems for future satellite constellations.
The CertusTM-NX-RT and CertusProTM-NX-RT FPGAs are built on the award-winning Lattice NexusTM platform, which provides a class-leading compact form factor, system bandwidth, and power efficiency – up to four times less power than comparable devices. In addition, the 28nm devices use a radiation-tolerant, completely depleted silicon-on-insulator (FD-SOI) manufacturing technique to incorporate temperature-resistant tin-lead (SnPb) terminations. CAES will validate Lattice's Certus-NX and CertusPro-NX FPGAs for radiation assurance and provide single-lot traceability and long-term supply.
The partnership targets the rising need for programmable, commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) devices in satellite networks that require a high level of redundancy and radiation tolerance.
"The space industry realizes that it can no longer rely solely on proprietary technology if it’s going to meet the growing affordability needs of satellites deployed in low- earth orbits,Our collaboration with Lattice will promote the development of open, scalable, upgradable architectures that are compatible and affordable."
-David Young, Chief Technology Officer, CAES.
We are pleased to collaborate with CAES, a leading industry expert in space applications, to make it easier than ever for the space industry to achieve their design objectives with our low power, high system bandwidth, small form factor FPGAs that support satellite constellation networks," said Esam Elashmawi, Chief Strategy and Marketing Officer, Lattice Semiconductor. "With our scalable Certus-NX and CertusPro-NX FPGA families and CAES’ deep industry expertise, we are accelerating the adoption of new architectures ideally suited for the evolving processing needs of today’s space applications.
CAES professionals will provide software programming and design support throughout the product development process to complement this new addition to its space product line and to help speed the design process. Additionally, CAES provides pre-engineered IP building blocks and development tools, such as the Lattice Radiant® design software, enabling the fast implementation of complicated designs and supporting common logic synthesis tools. CAES is currently creating a port of their well-established GRLIB development environment and a library of customizable, standardized soft IP design cores to assist customers' needs better as they incorporate these FPGAs into their designs.
"Keeping pace with the rapidly evolving space environment requires access to the latest commercial technology, Lattice and CAES are addressing the space SwaP-C challenges with a power efficient FPGA based on FD-SOI. This collaboration is an example of the innovation needed to develop cutting edge solutions that meet the demanding size, weight, power, and cost constraints of next generation space missions."
-Andrew Foor, Chief Technologist, Trusted Space Solutions, General Dynamics Mission Systems
Radiant tools will be available in production in the first quarter of 2022, with Certus-NX-RT FPGA samples expected in the early second quarter and Certus-Pro-NX-RT FPGA anticipated pieces in the third quarter. Please visit https://caes.com/fpga for further details.