4 ms·

IIRC, the F-22 has the equivalent of a Harris Night Hawk computer onboard. That was a big deal 20 years ago, but computationally outclassed by a $100 smartphon

IIRC, the F-22 has the equivalent of a Harris Night Hawk computer onboard. That was a big deal 20 years ago, but computationally outclassed by a $100 smartphone today. My memory, faulty as it may be, seems to recall a two page ad in AW&ST touting the Night Hawk "supercomputer" that would be in each F-22.

engi_nerd 11y ago
This is normal in the defense industry. You must be very careful when you upgrade hardware, because it should be proven that the upgrade provides at least the capability of the previous system (regression testing) plus whatever new/improved functionality you plan. Changing hardware on the timescale of consumer electronics is simply not viable, or necessary. In other words, my response to your statement that the avionics of a fighter jet are "computationally outclassed by a $100 smartphone today" is, "So what?" You buy and test the hardware that you believe is necessary to accomplish the given mission, not the latest-and-greatest for the sake of being the latest-and-greatest.
- rootbear 11y ago
  Similar arguments apply to spacecraft. The processors and other IT tech are usually far behind consumer gear. This is party due to the radiation hardening required, but also the lack of a real requirement for the latest-and-greatest.
  - dajohnson89 11y ago
    I have a hard time classifying the computational power of a smartphone as latest-and-greatest.
    - engi_nerd 11y ago
      That's almost irrelevant. The point is, the computational power on even a 5th generation fighter is much less than a flagship smartphone. Which is fine, because defense acquisition is on a completely different timescale than a typical consumer electronic product.
      - nickpsecurity 11y ago
        I agree with your overall point but not smartphone part. The systems I'm seeing certified for DO178C, etc and defense are usually PowerPC boards with 1-2 cores. PPC always smashed ARM back in the day. So, some are probably better than most smartphones. Just not the highest-end. Which is fine because you're right: they don't need them. I'll add the older nodes were more reliable, too, as it was trivial to get chips to work vs deep sub-micron. I'll take old-school, fault-tolerant chip over modern ASIC any day if ny life is at stake.
        engi_nerd 11y ago
        My point was that how much more or less powerful the avionics in a modern fighter are as compared to a modern smartphone is irrelevant. What matters is the ability to accomplish the mission in a robust and fault-tolerant matter.
        nickpsecurity 11y ago
        I recognized and agreed with that in my comment. Just correcting the misconception that they're all weak. Many are good and some have more than one.
fiatmoney 11y ago
There are very few functional requirements on that kind of a system that are linearly improved by a faster computer - it's not like they're mining bitcoins in flight. "Doing X in real time" is usually the goal and any faster is superfluous. OTOH, "X percent more robust when pulling G's / subjected to EMP / hit by shockwave" is an excellent property to have, so you stick with simpler systems.
- coredog64 11y ago
  If it was mining bitcoin in flight then it could pay for itself ;)
digler999 11y ago
your smartphone isn't formally verified.
neurotech1 11y ago
IIRC The F-22 uses an array of 39 i960MX processors in each of the two Common Integrated Processor (CIP) "Super Computers". Each i960 processor has 30M Instructions per Second capability. I'm not sure the clock speed, but its under 100 MHz. Each computer also has several custom DSP processors. This processing capacity could be replaced with a couple of high density MILSPEC FPGAs. Its likely they'd use a 64-bit PowerPC processor augmented by FPGAs. The combined solution would be flexible and probably offer 1000x what the F-22 (Block 5 airframe) went into service, at a fraction the cost of the CIP [1] As for the reference to the $100 smartphone, the latest "$100" smartphones could probably handle MegaPixel cameras for Augmented Reality and with connected sensors, more commonly known as "Sensor Fusion" [2] Note: A failure of a $100 smartphone doesn't usually result in a pilot pulling the ejection handles on a $185m (unit cost) fighter. Avionics has to meet higher standards. There are MILSPEC versions of some of these processors. FPGAs are available with MILSPEC qualification. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_i960#i960_variants https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_i960#i960_variants [1] http://www.f22fighter.com/avionics.htm#2.1 http://www.f22fighter.com/avionics.htm#2.1 Common Integrated Processor (CIP) [2] http://www.f22fighter.com/avionics.htm#4.0 http://www.f22fighter.com/avionics.htm#4.0 Software
- nickpsecurity 11y ago
  Not to mention the old i960's had advanced segmentation and error handling vs common RISC due to BiiN project requirements. I really wish i960 got traction and updates to modern nodes as my security engineering work would've been soooo much easief than x86 bullshit. Like you said, though, they can be emulated or replaced with PPC if necessary. I encourage someone to emulate i960 anyway given it was badass enough to deserve at least one FPGA clone. :)

engi_nerd 11y ago

This is normal in the defense industry. You must be very careful when you upgrade hardware, because it should be proven that the upgrade provides at least the capability of the previous system (regression testing) plus whatever new/improved functionality you plan. Changing hardware on the timescale of consumer electronics is simply not viable, or necessary. In other words, my response to your statement that the avionics of a fighter jet are "computationally outclassed by a $100 smartphone today" is, "So what?" You buy and test the hardware that you believe is necessary to accomplish the given mission, not the latest-and-greatest for the sake of being the latest-and-greatest.

rootbear 11y ago
Similar arguments apply to spacecraft. The processors and other IT tech are usually far behind consumer gear. This is party due to the radiation hardening required, but also the lack of a real requirement for the latest-and-greatest.
- dajohnson89 11y ago
  I have a hard time classifying the computational power of a smartphone as latest-and-greatest.
  - engi_nerd 11y ago
    That's almost irrelevant. The point is, the computational power on even a 5th generation fighter is much less than a flagship smartphone. Which is fine, because defense acquisition is on a completely different timescale than a typical consumer electronic product.
    - nickpsecurity 11y ago
      I agree with your overall point but not smartphone part. The systems I'm seeing certified for DO178C, etc and defense are usually PowerPC boards with 1-2 cores. PPC always smashed ARM back in the day. So, some are probably better than most smartphones. Just not the highest-end. Which is fine because you're right: they don't need them. I'll add the older nodes were more reliable, too, as it was trivial to get chips to work vs deep sub-micron. I'll take old-school, fault-tolerant chip over modern ASIC any day if ny life is at stake.
      - engi_nerd 11y ago
        My point was that how much more or less powerful the avionics in a modern fighter are as compared to a modern smartphone is irrelevant. What matters is the ability to accomplish the mission in a robust and fault-tolerant matter.
        nickpsecurity 11y ago
        I recognized and agreed with that in my comment. Just correcting the misconception that they're all weak. Many are good and some have more than one.

fiatmoney 11y ago

There are very few functional requirements on that kind of a system that are linearly improved by a faster computer - it's not like they're mining bitcoins in flight. "Doing X in real time" is usually the goal and any faster is superfluous. OTOH, "X percent more robust when pulling G's / subjected to EMP / hit by shockwave" is an excellent property to have, so you stick with simpler systems.

coredog64 11y ago
If it was mining bitcoin in flight then it could pay for itself ;)

digler999 11y ago

your smartphone isn't formally verified.

neurotech1 11y ago

IIRC The F-22 uses an array of 39 i960MX processors in each of the two Common Integrated Processor (CIP) "Super Computers". Each i960 processor has 30M Instructions per Second capability. I'm not sure the clock speed, but its under 100 MHz. Each computer also has several custom DSP processors. This processing capacity could be replaced with a couple of high density MILSPEC FPGAs. Its likely they'd use a 64-bit PowerPC processor augmented by FPGAs. The combined solution would be flexible and probably offer 1000x what the F-22 (Block 5 airframe) went into service, at a fraction the cost of the CIP [1] As for the reference to the $100 smartphone, the latest "$100" smartphones could probably handle MegaPixel cameras for Augmented Reality and with connected sensors, more commonly known as "Sensor Fusion" [2] Note: A failure of a $100 smartphone doesn't usually result in a pilot pulling the ejection handles on a $185m (unit cost) fighter. Avionics has to meet higher standards. There are MILSPEC versions of some of these processors. FPGAs are available with MILSPEC qualification. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_i960#i960_variants https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_i960#i960_variants [1] http://www.f22fighter.com/avionics.htm#2.1 http://www.f22fighter.com/avionics.htm#2.1 Common Integrated Processor (CIP) [2] http://www.f22fighter.com/avionics.htm#4.0 http://www.f22fighter.com/avionics.htm#4.0 Software

nickpsecurity 11y ago
Not to mention the old i960's had advanced segmentation and error handling vs common RISC due to BiiN project requirements. I really wish i960 got traction and updates to modern nodes as my security engineering work would've been soooo much easief than x86 bullshit. Like you said, though, they can be emulated or replaced with PPC if necessary. I encourage someone to emulate i960 anyway given it was badass enough to deserve at least one FPGA clone. :)