Describes Actel’s programmable technology. Early adopters of this technology, in both Europe and North America in experimental and telecommunication space programmes used these field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) very successfully. Owing to the success of these early adopters, Actel transferred its technology to a radiation hardened wafer fab and now offers a rad hard version of its commercial product, serving the needs of the traditional government end use space market and long lifetime missions. Since the introduction of the rad hard FPGAs the industry has undergone major shifts in attitudes. While there is still a significant demand for radiation hardened devices, lower cost alternatives with a lower level of radiation tolerance are expected to exist in the majority of space programmes.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.