Mercury Introduces Direct RF System-On-Module Powered by Intel Agilex FPGA

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ANDOVER, Mass., Jan. 22, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Mercury Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ: MRCY, www.mrcy.com), a technology company that delivers mission-critical processing power to the edge, today introduced a Direct RF system-on-module (SOM) that uses Intel Agilex FPGAs to detect and process adversary emissions from a wide portion of the electromagnetic spectrum.

Direct RF components and modules directly digitize radio frequency signals at the antenna signal frequency, eliminating the analog signal down conversion stages required by legacy hardware. This approach requires extremely fast converters, high bandwidth digital data links, and powerful real-time digital signal processing. The results are reductions size, weight, power, cost, and latency that can benefit a variety of radar, communications, electronic warfare, SIGINT, and industrial applications. Mercury offers industry-leading Direct RF products including system-in-package and multi-chip modules and 3U VPX processing boards.

The playing card-sized DRF2580 SOM brings new capability to the Mercury Processing Platform, giving customers the ability to design aerospace and defense systems that digitize a large swath of the RF spectrum at the edge, enhancing security and accelerating decision-making in the field. The DRF2580 is a four-channel SOM based on the Intel Agilex 9 SoC FPGA AGRW014 that converts between analog and digital signals at 64 Gigasamples per second. It is available in standard form factors and supported by a best-in-class carrier design kit that allows users to focus on application-specific carrier development, with much of the most challenging aspects of embedded circuit design already solved by the SOM.

“We continue to innovate to enhance the Mercury Processing Platform and make the latest commercial technologies available to the defense industrial base,” said Ken Hermanny, GM of Mercury’s Mixed Signal business unit. “These boards make direct digitization across the spectrum a reality. Until now, converter technology could not keep up with the wide frequency range of RF input and output signals. By supporting higher conversion and processing rates, larger portions of the RF spectrum can be efficiently captured, processed, and exploited at the edge.”

“Intel Agilex 9 FPGAs with Direct RF offer Mercury Systems customers the critical SWAP capabilities and accelerated deployment required for next-generation applications in the aerospace and defense markets,” said John Sotir, Senior Director Military, Aerospace, and Government Business Unit, Intel Programmable Solutions Group (PSG).

The DRF2580 features:

• SWaP optimized, 2.5" x 3.5" footprint for deployment in standard and custom form factors 
• Support for up to 4x 100 GigE interfaces with carrier boards
• Navigator® Board Support Package for software development 
• Navigator® FPGA Design Kit for custom IP development 
• Carrier Design Package facilitates custom carrier board designs
  

Mercury Systems – Innovation that matters^®
Mercury Systems is a technology company that delivers mission-critical processing power to the edge, making advanced technologies profoundly more accessible for today’s most challenging aerospace and defense missions. The Mercury Processing Platform allows customers to tap into innovative capabilities from silicon to system scale, turning data into decisions on timelines that matter. Mercury’s products and solutions are deployed in more than 300 programs and across 35 countries, enabling a broad range of applications in mission computing, sensor processing, command and control, and communications. Mercury is headquartered in Andover, Massachusetts, and has 24 locations worldwide. To learn more, visit mrcy.com. (Nasdaq: MRCY)

Forward-Looking Safe Harbor Statement
This press release contains certain forward-looking statements, as that term is defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, including those relating to the Company's focus on enhanced execution of the Company's strategic plan under a refreshed Board and leadership team. You can identify these statements by the words “may,” “will,” “could,” “should,” “would,” “plans,” “expects,” “anticipates,” “continue,” “estimate,” “project,” “intend,” “likely,” “forecast,” “probable,” “potential,” and similar expressions. These forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those projected or anticipated. Such risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, continued funding of defense programs, the timing and amounts of such funding, general economic and business conditions, including unforeseen weakness in the Company’s markets, effects of any U.S. federal government shutdown or extended continuing resolution, effects of geopolitical unrest and regional conflicts, competition, changes in technology and methods of marketing, delays in or cost increases related to completing development, engineering and manufacturing programs, changes in customer order patterns, changes in product mix, continued success in technological advances and delivering technological innovations, changes in, or in the U.S. government’s interpretation of, federal export control or procurement rules and regulations, changes in, or in the interpretation or enforcement of, environmental rules and regulations, market acceptance of the Company's products, shortages in or delays in receiving components, supply chain delays or volatility for critical components such as semiconductors, production delays or unanticipated expenses including due to quality issues or manufacturing execution issues, failure to achieve or maintain manufacturing quality certifications, such as AS9100, the impact of the COVID pandemic and supply chain disruption, inflation and labor shortages, among other things, on program execution and the resulting effect on customer satisfaction, inability to fully realize the expected benefits from acquisitions, restructurings, and execution excellence initiatives or delays in realizing such benefits, challenges in integrating acquired businesses and achieving anticipated synergies, effects of shareholder activism, increases in interest rates, changes to industrial security and cyber-security regulations and requirements and impacts from any cyber or insider threat events, changes in tax rates or tax regulations, such as the deductibility of internal research and development, changes to interest rate swaps or other cash flow hedging arrangements, changes to generally accepted accounting principles, difficulties in retaining key employees and customers, which difficulties may be impacted by the termination of the Company’s announced strategic review initiative, unanticipated challenges with the transition of the Company’s Chief Executive Officer and Chief Financial Officer roles, including any dispute arising with the former CEO over his resignation, unanticipated costs under fixed-price service and system integration engagements, and various other factors beyond our control. These risks and uncertainties also include such additional risk factors as are discussed in the Company's filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, including its Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended June 30, 2023 and subsequent Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q and Current Reports on Form 8-K. The Company cautions readers not to place undue reliance upon any such forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date made. The Company undertakes no obligation to update any forward looking statement to reflect events or circumstances after the date on which such statement is made.

INVESTOR CONTACT
Nelson Erickson
Senior Vice President, Strategy and Corporate Development
Nelson.Erickson@mrcy.com

MEDIA CONTACT
Turner Brinton
Sr. Director, Corporate Communications
Turner.Brinton@mrcy.com

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