Systems used in many high-reliability commercial aerospace, defense, automotive, and industrial applications require certification to the IEC 61508 Safety Integrity Level (SIL) 3 functional safety specification. To reduce the cost of this process and time to market for system designers, Microchip Technology Inc. continues to certify its products and tools to industry safety specifications and now has IEC 61508 SIL 3 certification packages for two more of its System-on-Chip (SoC) FPGA and FPGA families.
“Microchip’s FPGA families have a broad and historically strong position in the industrial market and are known for the high reliability and security of our non-volatile FPGA technologies,” said Bruce Weyer, corporate vice president of Microchip’s FPGA business unit. “We also have a long history of certifying our products and tools to IEC 61508 SIL 3 and other safety specifications, making the end-device certification process much easier for our customers. Adding these packages for our low-power SmartFusion 2 SoC FPGAs and IGLOO 2 FPGAs is a natural extension for industrial customers developing highly reliable products for smart grids, automation controllers, process analyzers, and other safety-critical applications.”
Microchip’s security packages are built on top of the SEU-immune, flash-based FPGA fabric Smart Fusion 2 and IGLOO 2 devices, and these FPGAs are certified by the independent safety auditor TÜV Rheinland. Package deliverables include certification of Microchip’s Libero SoC Design Suite v11.8 Service Pack 4 and associated development tools, as well as 28 Intellectual Property (IP) cores, security manuals, documentation and device datasheets. A safety certificate from TÜV Rheinland is also available.
Microchip also helps protect customers’ long-term certification investments through customer-centric obsolescence, in which Microchip commits to build devices that are used in a certified system for as long as customers choose to order, and Microchip is able to build all sub-elements of a device to obtain. This increases confidence that certification will not need to be repeated while reducing the risk that a part will unexpectedly reach end of life, forcing redesign or tool flow changes.
About SmartFusion 2 SoC FPGAs and IGLOO 2 FPGAs
Unlike SRAM-based FPGAs (Static Random Access Memory), Microchip’s flash-based SmartFusion 2 and IGLOO 2 FPGAs eliminate the need for triple module redundancy (TMR) mitigation, which increases overall system costs. The SmartFusion 2 SoC FPGA 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 percent less power than comparable devices and is ideal for general-purpose functions that require more resources than alternative FPGAs can deliver.
Availability
Microchip security packages for its SmartFusion 2 and IGLOO 2 devices are available from Microchip Purchasing and Customer Service website. Complete information on Microchip’s FPGA families is available here.