Microsemi is positioning itself as a supplier of system-on-chip (SoC) devices with a business built around FPGA platforms and analogue components.
The US-based company, which is especially strong in the aerospace, defence and industrial markets, added the FPGA lines to its existing analogue and power business with the acquisition of Actel last year.
This is an example of how FPGA suppliers are now refocusing their businesses to be SoC and ASSP vendors, and not just suppliers of general purpose programmable logic devices.
"We view the FPGA as a system-on-chip device," said Jay Legenhausen, Microsemi's v-p of worldwide sales for the SoC business.
"For us the FPGA is the part which brings along a whole range of our other products," said Legenhausen.
According to Legenhausen, future product developments of the Smart Fusion mixed signal FPGA range will focus on "embedding new functions on-chip and not just creating a bigger FGPA," he said.
Another aspect of this is the expansion of third party support for the SmartFusion FPGAs with a particular focus on industrial networking applications.
The intention is to increase the choice of operating systems and communication protocols supported by the FPGAs.
For example, Emcraft has ported uClinux to SmartFusion, there is a new CAN bus core from Inicore and FreeRTOS is available as a reference design.
The Keil TCP/IP is available with or without the RTX real-time kernel, for the on-chip ARM processor.
Europe's industrial, security and aerospace sectors are target markets for Microsemi, which before the acquisition of Actel did most of its business in the US.