Date: 19/09/2011

Freescales forms MCFA group to help commercial avionics companies

Freescale Semiconductor has formed a working group with top North American and European commercial avionics manufacturers to define their information requirements for advanced Freescale multicore processors being used in commercial avionics applications.

Freescales says the Multicore for Avionics (MCFA) working group was established to help commercial avionics companies fully leverage the performance, power and size advantages of Freescale's sophisticated commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) embedded multicore processors, such as the eight-core QorIQ P4080 device.

The MCFA working group includes representatives from BAE Systems, BARCO, Boeing, EADS, ELBIT, GE Aviation, Hamilton Sunstrand, Honeywell, Rockwell Collins, Thales and Freescale Semiconductor.

"Highly advanced multicore processors based on Power Architecture(R) technology are ideally suited to meet the demanding requirements of commercial avionics applications," said Glenn Beck, avionics marketing manager for Freescale's Networking Processor Division. "As a long-time provider of reliable, high-performance processors to the commercial avionics market, Freescale is pleased to play a leading role in helping top avionics companies realize the benefits of the latest advanced semiconductor designs."

"Future avionics systems will benefit from the integration provided by multicore SoCs as the industry strives to provide safer, lighter and feature-rich commercial aircraft," said Greg Arundale of Rockwell Collins. "The work that has come from the MCFA working group provides a crucial step toward allowing us to take advantage of next-generation processors provided by the electronics component industry."

"The members of the MCFA working group have come together to deal with this challenge," said Dr. Fred Fisher of the Aerospace Vehicle Systems Institute (AVSI). "Their proposal provides the direction needed for the certification of systems with complex SoC microprocessors."