Collaboration with Mercury Systems and VadaTech accelerates time-to-market and reduces SWaP in mission-critical defense platforms

Altera Corporation, the world’s largest pure-play FPGA solutions provider, today announced collaborations with Mercury Systems and VadaTech to expand its Agilex® 9 FPGA ecosystem with new COTS-based solutions for next-generation defense platforms. By combining Agilex 9 medium-band Direct RF FPGAs with industry-standard, open-architecture systems, the companies are helping defense customers accelerate time to market, reduce SWaP, and enable more flexible, software-defined RF capabilities in mission-critical systems.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260601920789/en/

Altera accelerates defense and aerospace innovation with the Agilex 9 FPGA Direct RF-Series, designed for high-performance RF signal processing at the edge.

Through this collaboration, Altera is supporting solutions based on open architectures, including SOSA-aligned OpenVPX platforms, delivering greater interoperability and flexibility. These field-proven systems help reduce integration risk and accelerate deployment while enabling rapid adaptability to adjacent mission requirements. With its medium-band direct RF capabilities, Agilex 9 provides an optimal balance of bandwidth, performance, and power efficiency, making it well suited for next-generation software-defined RF systems across a range of defense applications.

Craig Goodwin, Senior Director of Mercury’s Mixed Signal line of business, said, “Integrating medium-band converters into a high-performance FPGA provides the SWaP benefits needed for our boards to deliver mission-critical processing to the edge. Altera’s ready-to-use hardware and software tools enabled faster evaluation of the product’s capabilities and helps us design solutions for our customers more quickly. We selected the Agilex 9 medium-band Direct RF FPGA because of its best-in-class data converters and compute resources for this RF spectrum, with up to 10x SWaP advantage versus other FPGA options.”

Saeed Karamooz, CEO at VadaTech, added, “Agilex 9 Direct RF Series FPGAs enable high-performance, standards-based VPX solutions that integrate seamlessly within larger system architectures. Working alongside Altera, we help customers accelerate integration and bring advanced RF capabilities into deployed platforms.”

Agilex 9 Direct RF Series FPGAs integrate RF, compute and high-speed transceivers into a unified, programmable architecture, enabling real-time processing of large volumes of RF data at the edge for applications such as adaptive radar, cognitive electronic warfare, and secure, software-defined communications. This high level of integration supports the shift toward distributed, multi-domain operations requiring rapid decision-making and adaptability, while delivering the bandwidth, performance, and I/O needed for the most demanding embedded applications.

“Defense systems must process more data, across wider bandwidths, with greater flexibility,” said John Sotir, General Manager of Altera’s Military, Aerospace, and Government business unit. “Our work with Mercury Systems and VadaTech reinforces Altera’s commitment to advancing Direct RF technology and enabling more agile, scalable, and software-defined defense systems.”

Availability

Agilex 9 Direct RF AGRM027 devices, along with development kits, Mercury Systems DRF5660 boards, VadaTech VPX540 boards and supporting software are available for order today. For more information, visit Altera’s Agilex 9 Direct RF-Series product page or contact your local Altera representative: https://www.altera.com/contact.html

About Altera

Altera is a leading supplier of programmable hardware, software, and development tools that empower designers of electronic systems to innovate, differentiate, and succeed in their markets. With a broad portfolio of industry-leading FPGAs, SoCs, and design solutions, Altera enables customers to achieve faster time-to-market and unmatched performance in applications spanning industrial automation, audio/video, robotics, aerospace, defense, data centers, telecommunications, edge AI, and more. For more information, visit www.altera.com.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260601920789/en/

Altera expanded its Agilex 9 Direct RF FPGA ecosystem through collaborations with Mercury Systems and VadaTech, delivering open-architecture defense solutions that accelerate deployment, reduce SWaP, and enhance software-defined RF capabilities.