On the cost and time scale of military hardware, it's not out of the question for them to make new copies of the old asics.
Most of those ics can be replaced with a single FPGA today.
Also, the DoD actually owns and operates their own semiconductor foundry in Sacramento that is specifically and deliberately setup to manufacture old and obsolete ics needed by the military.
So yes, there are challenges to sourcing them, you can't get them from digikey, but there is a whole infrastructure built up to keep supplying and or replace these things with fpgas or whatever
My understanding is that it's the fabrication process that's different for mil-spec ICs, not the architecture. The chips have to survive intense acceleration, intense heat, transport in dust-laden inhospitable climates, years of storage afterwards, and then function with close to 100% reliability afterwards. These are all conditions that you would not subject your data server or iPhone to.
My understanding is that the fabrication of the dies are exactly the same, the actual silicon.
It's usually the encapsulation, enclosure and testing that's different. Those are really not big deals, it's not trivial, and they can't be interchanged with consumer product, but it's not as if you are making a fundamental different thing.
That's mostly a function of packaging and QC, no? The temperature range I can see from a quick search isn't much different than the strict automotive range of -50 to 150C, which standard process nodes can hit.
There are more mundane issues like lead-free solder. RoHS isn't US law and the military will not use lead-free parts because of reliability issues. Most DIL and QFP parts are sold with unformed leads because vibration requirements generally require higher standoff from the board customized for each application so the leads flex less and can be supported from below with elastoemric compounds. Good luck procuring such things without some significant cash and the right contacts.
I'm confused, you seem to be conflating pcbs and parts. The ics are soldered to the board with the lead, or lead free solder. The lead or lead free solder thing only applies to securing the parts to the board, the pcba assembly process, not the chips themselves. Am I correct?
Makes sense on the lead height thing, the more you know.
Not quite, the leads are (usually) coated with something. If it's pure tin it can grow whiskers from the top or even from under the solder connection, even if you use a leaded solder to attach it to the board. That's why even DIP parts come in leaded or lead-free versions.
There are packages which come with the solder, like BGA, which can (usually?) safely be reballed to use leaded.
Leads that come pre-tinned have to have a compatible solder on them. When you buy components now, the suppliers declare whether they're RoHS (lead-free) or not. You can't easily buy eutectic (lead bearing) tinned parts anymore because it's easier to have the global supply chain conform to the EU regulations. Note that military parts often come with gold plated leads which you can use your choice of solder on. You can't easily buy such things anymore from commercial suppliers.
How much of that is owing to anything special about the IC vs manufacturing technology of the day? Legacy chip designs built on older nodes are probably more robust just due to physically bigger wires and components. Wikipedia lists a 1987 node size as 800nm[0].
And than a Stinger fails while being fired from, say, a F-35. And it fails catastrophically, resulting in the loss of the aircraft and, worst case the pilot. Which can happen, a stinger is tube filled woth rocket fuel carryong a warhead designed to take down planes.
I can already see the HN comments: Pentagon and defence conteactors to stupid to conduct simple quality control. The software obviously sucked, but what do you expect from government or old industry... Let's just say that Raytheon has a pretty strong incentive to be able to scale up Stonger production, and despite claims of the contrary, they are pretty good at doing so.
> And than a Stinger fails while being fired from, say, a F-35. And it fails catastrophically, resulting in the loss of the aircraft and, worst case the pilot.
I'm guessing that Stinger missiles, just like any other machine, have a failure rate above 0% already.
If we can produce them more quickly, efficiently, etc., but that failure rate increased that might be worth it if we get to produce more missiles.
Or maybe the new missiles are cheap enough that targets we previously couldn't cost effectively engage can be added to the menu.
Even in war, "good enough" is still important.
We can just as easily lose that F35 because we didn't have any missiles to launch, so it didn't even take off.
On the cost and time scale of military hardware, it's not out of the question for them to make new copies of the old asics.
Most of those ics can be replaced with a single FPGA today.
Also, the DoD actually owns and operates their own semiconductor foundry in Sacramento that is specifically and deliberately setup to manufacture old and obsolete ics needed by the military.
So yes, there are challenges to sourcing them, you can't get them from digikey, but there is a whole infrastructure built up to keep supplying and or replace these things with fpgas or whatever
Edited - typo