Altera Qualifies Stratix and Cyclone for Aerospace

Staff Reporter -- Electronics Weekly, 7/27/2006

Altera’s Stratix and Cyclone FPGAs have been certified to be in compliance with the Aerospace Qualified Electronic Components (AQEC) specification GEIA-STD-0002-01.

The specification, created by more than a dozen semiconductor manufacturers (including Altera) and avionic developers, provides a formal compliance process to assure customers that commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) components meet the low-risk, high-reliability needs of the military and aerospace electronics market.

The firm’s Stratix II and Cyclone II FPGAs, and MAX II CPLDs are currently in the process of obtaining AQEC certification. Stratix II FPGAs include anti-tampering design security using a 128-bit advanced encryption standard (AES) design security key.

The AQEC specification requires semiconductor manufacturers and distributors to document the processes they use to analyse, test or otherwise characterise their COTS products.