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Mercury Computer Systems Announces First COTS Digital Receiver Using Seven Virtex-4 FPGAs

Posted on: Tuesday, 16 May 2006, 09:04 CDT

LONG BEACH, Calif., May 16 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Mercury Computer Systems, Inc. announced its new Echotek(TM) Series ECV4-4 FPGA-based family of mixed-signal products at the Military Embedded Electronics and Computing Conference (MEECC) in Long Beach, CA.

The Echotek Series leads the mixed-signal products industry in extracting clear signals from electronic clutter. Echotek Series mixed-signal products form a bridge between the realms of analog signals and digital processing. After an analog signal is received by an antenna or other sensor, it must be digitized and manipulated into a form amenable to signal processing. The challenge, and the key to successful applications, is to manage this transformation in real time while maintaining the integrity of the original signal.

"Echotek products have always delivered the finest signal integrity, measured by SNR (signal-to-noise ratio) or SFDR (spur-free dynamic range)," said Gary J. Turchetta, General Manager of the Echotek Product Group at Mercury. "Our new product offerings continue that tradition while adding a huge leap in new FPGA processing capability."

Two of the new Echotek Series ECV4-4 digital receivers can be configured together to enable coherent processing of eight data channels, doubling the channels available for beamforming applications. Beamforming is a signal processing technique used to control the directionality of the reception or transmission of a signal on a transducer array. The technique combines the digitized signals from multiple antennae to increase signal amplification in the direction of wanted signals and decrease the amplification of interference and noise.

The ECV4-4 is also the first COTS digital receiver to harness the processing power of seven Xilinx(R) Virtex(TM)-4 FPGAs (field-programmable gate arrays). Four Virtex-4 SX FPGAs function as channelizers, while two Virtex-4 FX FPGAs operate as cross-channel processors, and a third Virtex-4 FX FPGA is dedicated to board control.

The ECV4-4 family comes in classic 6U VME and 6U VXS form factors, with options for digital receivers and transceivers covering multiple frequency bands. Dedicated I/O allows two boards to combine data to achieve simultaneous and coherent access to eight individual inputs. This enables application developers to address a vast problem in signals intelligence (SIGINT) and Air Traffic Control radar, in which the challenge is to get wideband data from eight antenna elements to the same place at the same time for beamforming.

The ECV4-4 is sold as a standalone module or as part of the Mercury PowerStream(R) series. PowerStream is a family of fabric-enabled, integrated multicomputers that support DSP processing, FPGA processing, and I/O functionality in CompactPCI, VME, VXS, VPX-REDI and other form factors. All PowerStream series multicomputers run a common software environment that eases migration between form factors and provides a fast and seamless development path to future system architectures.

The ECV4-4 family of products is available today within standard lead times. For more information, visit Mercury in Booth #10 at MEECC, visit http://www.mc.com/echotek, or contact Mercury at (866) 627-6951.

About Mercury Computer Systems, Inc.

Mercury Computer Systems, Inc. is the leading provider of high-performance embedded, real-time digital signal and image processing solutions. Mercury's solutions play a critical role in a wide range of applications, transforming sensor data to information for analysis and interpretation. In military reconnaissance and surveillance platforms the Company's systems process real-time radar, sonar, and signals intelligence data. Mercury's systems are also used in state-of-the-art medical diagnostic imaging devices including MRI, PET, and digital X-ray, and in semiconductor imaging applications including photomask generation and wafer inspection. Mercury provides advanced 3D image processing and visualization software and optimized systems to diverse end markets including life sciences, geosciences, and simulation. The Company also provides radio frequency (RF) products for enhanced communications capabilities in military and commercial applications.

Based in Chelmsford, Massachusetts, Mercury serves customers in North America, Europe and Asia through its direct sales force and a network of subsidiaries and distributors. Visit Mercury on the web at http://www.mc.com/.

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 Echotek Series ECV4-4 product family. You can identify these statements by our use of the words "may,""will,""should,""plans,""expects,""anticipates,""continue,""estimate,""project,""intend," 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, general economic and business conditions, including unforeseen weakness in the Company's markets, effects of continued geo- political unrest and regional conflicts, competition, changes in technology, and methods of marketing, delays in completing engineering and manufacturing programs, changes in customer order patterns, changes in product mix, continued success in technological advances and delivering technological innovations, continued funding of defense programs, the timing of such funding, changes in the U.S. Government's interpretation of federal procurement rules and regulations, market acceptance of the Company's products, shortages in components, production delays due to performance quality issues with outsourced components, and inability to fully realize the expected benefits from acquisitions or delays in realizing such benefits, challenges in integrating acquired businesses, and achieving anticipated synergies, and difficulties in retaining key customers. These risks and uncertainties also include such additional risk factors as are discussed in the Company's recent filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, including its Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the fiscal quarter ended March 31, 2006. 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.

Contacts: Eran Strod, Director of Kathy Donahue, Public Relations Product Marketing Manager Mercury Computer Systems, Inc. Mercury Computer Systems, Inc. 978-967-1737 / estrod@mc.com 978-967-1126 / kdonahue@mc.com

Virtex is a trademark and Xilinx is a registered trademark of Xilinx Inc. Echotek is a trademark, and PowerStream is a registered trademark of Mercury Computer Systems, Inc. Other product and company names mentioned may be trademarks and/or registered trademarks of their respective holders.

Photo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20060103/MERCURYCSLOGOAP Archive: http://photoarchive.ap.org/PRN Photo Desk photodesk@prnewswire.com

Mercury Computer Systems, Inc.

CONTACT: Eran Strod, Director of Product Marketing, +1-978-967-1737,estrod@mc.com; or Kathy Donahue, Public Relations Manager, +1-978-967-1126,kdonahue@mc.com, both of Mercury Computer Systems, Inc.

Web site: http://www.mc.com/

Source: PRNewswire-FirstCall

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