Murat Sarpel, CEO of Empa Electronics, spoke to C4Defence Magazine about his company’s role in the defence industry. Empa is Türkiye’s only provider of AMD programmable chips, which serve as the “main brain” of critical platforms such as the National Combat Aircraft KAAN, HÜRJET, HÜRKUŞ and the Altay Tank. Sarpel said the company’s New-Generation R&D Model is what sets it apart from its competitors, and he also shared its contributions in areas ranging from smart munitions to RF systems, along with its future goals in embedded software.
C4Defence: Beyond space, aviation and defence, you also serve very different fields such as e-mobility, energy management and consumer electronics. What advantages does this multi-sector structure give your company?
Murat Sarpel: Working across different fields lets us work with practically every company that manufactures electronics. That way we understand the different dynamics in each sector, and we make the knowledge and solutions we build there available to companies in other fields as well. Türkiye, like the rest of the world, has sectors that shrink or grow in cycles. Another advantage of working in several areas is that our finances are less affected when that happens.
C4Defence: Within defence specifically, which of your product groups or solutions stand out?
Murat Sarpel: In space, aviation and defence, EMPA provides R&D and product support to aircraft, tanks, smart munitions, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), RF jamming and blanking systems, professional radio systems, 5G NR and many other projects and systems.
On the aircraft side, we are part of the 5th-generation National Combat Aircraft KAAN and the HÜRKUŞ and HÜRJET basic and jet trainer projects. For KAAN, we supply a high-performance programmable processor for the critical mission computer, along with high-speed, high-volume connectors and the wired communication infrastructure for avionics. We also provide semiconductor and electromechanical components for similar blocks in other parts of the system, including Line Replaceable Units (LRUs). Our role in HÜRKUŞ and HÜRJET is similar to KAAN: we supply high-performance programmable processing units for the critical mission and communication infrastructure, along with semiconductor components for communications.
For the Altay Tank, we supply high-performance programmable semiconductors and electromechanical components such as cables and connectors, including to the subcontractors working on the system.
Another area we work in is smart munitions, developed for critical air and ground missions on land, air and sea platforms, particularly UAVs and attack aircraft. For the smart munition systems of different manufacturers, EMPA supplies a range of semiconductor and electromechanical components. These include high-power programmable processors, specialized wired avionics communication chips, and connection solutions built for demanding conditions and custom form factors.
For armed and unarmed UAVs and UCAVs, we supply a wide range of electromechanical components such as cables, connectors and power elements, in different standards, specifications and variants, as well as the specialized avionics communication semiconductors and sensors that form the wired communication backbone between the vehicle and its peripherals.
In RF jamming and blanking systems, we mainly provide the semiconductor components that perform the amplification functions in the RF layers of backpack-type jamming systems.
We have been serving professional radio projects since 2000, with a broad product range and R&D support. Our more recent solutions include semiconductor-based Smart Modules that can integrate camera sensors, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, positioning systems (GNSS), memory and SIM cards, communication, control and analog-to-digital converter ports, and Linux and Android operating system support, among many other features. We also offer MEMS sensors, low-power, low-cost 32-bit ARM mobile platform processors, and color TFT displays.
On top of all this, for 5G NR (New Radio) products we offer state-of-the-art SoC semiconductor solutions. These combine the most critical component of the system, a high-performance programmable central processing unit, with the surrounding analog and digital blocks in a single integrated package.
I especially want to stress that we provide R&D support for all of these projects as well.
C4Defence: Empa Electronics supplies semiconductor solutions to prestigious Turkish defence projects like HÜRJET and HÜRKUŞ. What technological contributions do you make to such critical platforms, and at which stages of the process are you involved?
Murat Sarpel: EMPA supplies a number of very important semiconductor, electromechanical and avionics parts. But what we do can’t be described as simply supplying electronic parts. We have an R&D centre, so beyond providing our customers with the materials they need, we also offer engineering and R&D support for the areas where those materials will be used. In short, we provide the technical support that makes their work, their projects and their lives easier. That support can be a prototype, a piece of software or a module design. We also support projects on site with our technical staff throughout the process, and we keep supporting customers with any problems that come up after the product is built.
In defence especially, where any disruption can become a matter of survival, it is critical that the supply chain works properly, on time and without interruption. At EMPA we work to ensure that continuity as well. All of this makes what we do more functional and meaningful.
Aviation and defence projects usually use only small quantities of each part. In the white goods industry, for example, you might procure tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands or even millions of parts. But if 100 HÜRKUŞ or HÜRJET aircraft are going to be built, you only procure 100 of a given component. Not every company can offer R&D and technical support for a part ordered in quantities of 100. What sets us apart in the sector is that we support even those 100 units, we are by our customers’ side at every moment, and we speak the same language as they do. We also offer our customers financial and logistics support.
We supply components that are indispensable at many points in the defence industry. Let me give an example from aircraft projects. Say an avionics system (the electronic systems used in aircraft for communication, navigation, surveillance and display) has an internal communication standard, meaning the electronic parts in the project talk to each other through it. Only one or two companies in the world can provide that standard, and we are the representative and technical support provider of one of them. So if an aircraft like KAAN, HÜRKUŞ or HÜRJET is being built, EMPA’s support has to be there wherever the avionics systems are used.
A second example is programmable chips, which are also critical parts for defence. These are not off-the-shelf products. Each project requires them to be programmed and configured separately. We are the only provider in Türkiye of the programmable chips produced by AMD, and these parts serve as the main brain in all of the critical projects, including KAAN, HÜRKUŞ, HÜRJET, Kızılelma and Roketsan’s rocket projects.
Of course, this doesn’t mean we do the most important part of these projects, but I can say we play a significant role in them.
C4Defence: Are there new technologies or investment areas you are targeting in defence over the next five years?
Murat Sarpel: Recent military developments around the world have shown how prominent aviation, missile guidance systems and radar and electronic warfare products will be. In Türkiye, major companies are working on manned and unmanned aerial vehicles and their components, missiles, and Steel Dome subsystems. We are also continuing to expand our work on solutions suited to space projects. In these areas in particular, EMPA is working on embedded software, integrating AI applications, and bringing new technologies to companies in the field through partnerships with foreign firms.
C4Defence: We’ve left IDEF 2025 behind, and SAHA Expo is next. As a company that takes part in both events, what have been the most tangible benefits of such organizations for you?
Murat Sarpel: We are preparing to take part in SAHA Expo in May 2026. At IDEF 2025, held on 22-27 July, the collaboration- and business-development-focused approach of the brands present led to very productive and successful meetings for us. Alongside domestic visitors, we hosted nearly 1,000 professionals from 12 different countries, led by the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, and held meetings with 17 buying delegations, two of them foreign.
We believe that taking part in organizations like IDEF and SAHA Expo raises our visibility and recognition internationally. Joining this fair alongside the giants of one of the world’s largest industries, defence, moves us a step ahead in our sector. All the companies we represent are global giants, and their representatives were at the fair with us and could connect directly with our customers. That was a very valuable outcome for us.
C4Defence: Finally, is there anything you’d like to add?
Murat Sarpel: We operate across a wide range of fields, from space, aviation and defence to industrial electronics, e-mobility, white goods and small appliances, smart energy and LED lighting. In all of these sectors, we believe one of the biggest things that sets us apart from our competitors is our New-Generation R&D Model. It delivers an important service to customers of every size, and it is an unconventional approach. We follow technology trends through our work with technology suppliers and partners, trade fairs, seminars, conferences and meetings with our customers, and we run R&D work to develop solutions. These solutions speed up our customers’ projects and significantly reduce their R&D costs. We present our customers with solution proposals for their projects, and in this way we try to create demand. We continue to provide technical support throughout the project and for as long as the product is manufactured.
I switched to British spelling throughout (“centre” and “specialized” aside, which I left as is). If you want full British consistency, “specialized” becomes “specialised” and “color” becomes “colour”. I can apply that too.
Originally published in Turkish in C4Defence magazine, Issue 152.
