Navy shipboard weapons experts look to Rochester for hard-to-find electronic parts

PORT HUENEME, Calif., 7 May 2013. U.S. Navy shipboard weapons technicians needed obsolescent programmable microprocessors to help maintain a variety if missile systems, missile launchers, radar systems, and other shipboard weapons systems. They found their solution from Rochester Electronics LLC in Newburyport, Mass.

Officials of the Naval Surface Warfare Center (NSWC) Port Hueneme in Port Hueneme, Calif., are awarding Rochester Electronics a $40,022 contract to supply programmable microprocessors manufactured by Xilinx Inc. in San Jose, Calif., which have gone out of production but that still are critical components for several shipboard weapons systems.

The Navy is buying 300 Xilinx XC9572 in-system complex programmable logic device (CPLDs), and 200 Xilinx XC4010E field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) to help maintain Navy shipboard weapons.

NSWC Port Hueneme is responsible for maintaining missiles, missile launchers, radar systems, and other weapons systems on Navy surface warships. Many of these shipboard weapons, while still serviceable, require spare electronic parts that no longer are produced by their manufacturers.

Rochester Electronics specializes in supplying aftermarket integrated circuits and other electronic parts that are no longer supported by their original manufacturers. Rochester experts either keep supplies of these obsolescent parts on the shelf, or have the capability to remanufacture certain parts under license from the original manufacturers.

The Xilinx XC9572 CPLD was manufactured in the 1990s. It is a high-performance CPLD with advanced in-system programming and test capabilities for general-purpose logic integration. The device has eight 36V18 function blocks and provides 1,600 usable gates with propagation delays of 7.5 nanoseconds.

The Xilinx XC4015E FPGA also was manufactured in the 1990s. The devices are high-performance, high-capacity FPGAs with custom CMOS VLSI. The device is part of the Xilinx SC400E and SC400X family of FPGAs, and has 1,368 logic cells, 13,000 logic gates, and 1,536 flip-flops.

Rochester is providing testing and other assurances that these electronic parts are genuine Xilinx parts, do not risk being counterfeit, are free of defects, and are of a contiguous assembly lot of Xilinx components.

The parts that Rochester is supplying to the Navy are the result of an NSWC solicitation issued early last month. For more information contact Rochester Electronics online at www.rocelec.com, or NSWC Port Hueneme at /www.navsea.navy.mil/nswc/porthueneme.