Microsemi Expands Customer Application Design Opportunities by Introducing SmartFusion2 Advanced Development Kit with Largest Density 150K LE Device

ALISO VIEJO, Calif., Sept. 29, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- Microsemi Corporation (Nasdaq: MSCC), a leading provider of semiconductor solutions differentiated by power, security, reliability and performance, today announced the availability of the company's new largest density, lowest power SmartFusion®2 150K LE System-on-Chip (SoC) FPGA Advanced Development Kit. Board-level designers and system architects can quickly develop system-level designs by using the two FPGA Mezzanine Card (FMC) expansion headers to connect a wide range of new functions with off-the-shelf daughter cards, which significantly reduces design time and cost when creating new applications for communications, industrial, defense and aerospace markets.

"Microsemi's new SmartFusion2 150K LE Advanced Development Kit is ideal for designers developing low power, high security and highly reliable SoC applications," said Shakeel Peera, senior director of product line marketing at Microsemi. "With our largest density 150K LE device onboard, the development kit will enable customers to design applications for the complete SmartFusion2 family. Additionally, designers can accelerate their time-to-market and reduce development costs for high density designs by leveraging the two industry-standard FMC headers to develop or access pre-designed functional blocks on off-the-shelf daughter cards."

The new SmartFusion2 SoC FPGA Advanced Development Kit offers a full featured 150K LE device SmartFusion2 SoC FPGA. This industry-leading low power 150K LE device inherently integrates reliable flash-based FPGA fabric, a 166 MHz Cortex™ M3 processor, digital signal processing (DSP) blocks, static random-access memory (SRAM), embedded nonvolatile memory (eNVM) and industry-required high-performance communication interfaces—all on a single chip. Microsemi estimates its market for FPGAs to be around $2.5 billion. This is based on estimates garnered from iSuppli and competitive financial reports which report on revenue for individual product families. 

The new FMC headers provide designers additional cost savings, the ability to accelerate design development, and helps significantly reduce time-to-market on designs by providing the opportunity to leverage a wide range of standard off-the-shelf daughter cards for applications such as image and video processing, serial connectivity (SATA/SAS, SFP, SDI) and analog (A/D, D/A). The release of this kit also complements Microsemi's expertise and IP in JESD204B, supporting the growing enterprise market for high speed data conversion for applications such as radar, satellite, broadband communications and communications test equipment.

Also included with the kit is a one-year platinum license for Microsemi's advanced Libero SoC design software, valued at $2,500. With the Libero SoC design software Microsemi has created enhanced ease-of-use and design efficiencies with leading edge design wizards, editors and scripting engines that allow customers a faster time-to-market for SmartFusion2 and IGLOO2 FPGA-based designs.

About SmartFusion2 SoC FPGA Advanced Development Kit
The SmartFusion2 SoC FPGA Advanced Development Kit board has numerous standard and advanced peripherals such as: PCIe®x4 edge connector, two FMC connectors for developing solutions offered with off-the-shelf daughter cards, USB, Philips inter-integrated circuit (I2C), two gigabit Ethernet ports, serial peripheral interface (SPI) and UART. A high precision operational amplifier circuitry on the board helps to measure core power consumption by the device.

The SmartFusion2 SoC FPGA memory management system is supported by 1GB of onboard double data rate3 (DDR3) memory and 2GB SPI flash—1GB connected to the Microcontroller Subsystem (MSS) and 1GB connected to the FPGA fabric. The serializer and deserializer (SERDES) blocks can be accessed through the peripheral component interconnect express (PCIe) edge connector or high speed sub-miniature push-on (SMA) connectors or through on-board FMC connector.

Key SmartFusion2 150LE SoC Advanced Development Kit Features

• Largest 150K LE development device
• 2x FMC connectors (HPC and LPC)
• Purchase of kits comes with a free one-year Libero SoC design software platinum license (valued at $2,500)
• DDR3, SPI FLASH
• 2x Gigabit Ethernet connectors
• SMA connectors
• PCIe x4 edge connector
• Power measurement test points

For more information on Microsemi's SmartFusion2 SoC FPGA Evaluation Kit, visit www.microsemi.com/fpgaevaluationkit. Customers can also contact Microsemi's sales team at [email protected].

About SmartFusion2 SoC FPGAs
SmartFusion2 SoC FPGAs integrate inherently reliable flash-based FPGA fabric, a 166 megahertz (MHz) ARM Cortex-M3 processor, advanced security processing accelerators, DSP blocks, SRAM, eNVM and industry-required high performance communication interfaces, all on a single chip. Microsemi's SmartFusion2 SoC FPGAs are designed to address fundamental requirements for advanced security, high reliability and low power in critical communications, industrial, defense, aviation and medical applications.

About Microsemi

Microsemi Corporation (Nasdaq: MSCC) offers a comprehensive portfolio of semiconductor and system solutions for communications, defense & security, aerospace and industrial markets. Products include high-performance and radiation-hardened analog mixed-signal integrated circuits, FPGAs, SoCs and ASICs; power management products; timing and synchronization devices and precise time solutions, setting the world's standard for time; voice processing devices; RF solutions; discrete components; security technologies and scalable anti-tamper products; Power-over-Ethernet ICs and midspans; as well as custom design capabilities and services. Microsemi is headquartered in Aliso Viejo, Calif., and has approximately 3,400 employees globally. Learn more at www.microsemi.com.

Microsemi and the Microsemi logo are registered trademarks or service marks of Microsemi Corporation and/or its affiliates. Third-party trademarks and service marks mentioned herein are the property of their respective owners.

"Safe Harbor" Statement under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995: Any statements set forth in this news release that are not entirely historical and factual in nature, including without limitation statements related to its new largest density, lowest power SmartFusion®2 150K LE System-on-Chip (SoC) Advanced Development Kit, and its potential effects on future business, are forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are based on our current expectations and are inherently subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed in the forward-looking statements. The potential risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, such factors as rapidly changing technology and product obsolescence, potential cost increases, variations in customer order preferences, weakness or competitive pricing environment of the marketplace, uncertain demand for and acceptance of the company's products, adverse circumstances in any of our end markets, results of in-process or planned development or marketing and promotional campaigns, difficulties foreseeing future demand, potential non-realization of expected orders or non-realization of backlog, product returns, product liability, and other potential unexpected business and economic conditions or adverse changes in current or expected industry conditions, difficulties and costs of protecting patents and other proprietary rights, inventory obsolescence and difficulties regarding customer qualification of products. In addition to these factors and any other factors mentioned elsewhere in this news release, the reader should refer as well to the factors, uncertainties or risks identified in the company's most recent Form 10-K and all subsequent Form 10-Q reports filed by Microsemi with the SEC. Additional risk factors may be identified from time to time in Microsemi's future filings. The forward-looking statements included in this release speak only as of the date hereof, and Microsemi does not undertake any obligation to update these forward-looking statements to reflect subsequent events or circumstances.

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SOURCE Microsemi Corporation