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Do the sophisticated missiles etc. have powerful chips in them? I would assume the primary objective would be things like reliability, redundancy, etc. Beyond t

by edge17 7y ago

Do the sophisticated missiles etc. have powerful chips in them? I would assume the primary objective would be things like reliability, redundancy, etc. Beyond that, probably enough horsepower to deal with some control systems (so numerical differentiation, etc), but these I imagine would typically be microcontrollers and not full processors, right? I imagine the design process requires a lot of high power computing, but when one gets down to implementing field devices, they typically aren't doing anything too high powered.

HeWhoLurksLate 7y ago
It depends, it really does. One of the local aviation companies I got to tour had two processes- one for SMD (mostly automated) and one for THT (mostly soldered by hand). On the newer SMD processes, the most popular computing chips were Xilinx FPGA's, which were everywhere. The way it was explained to me was that the FPGA can handle internal redundancy [1] without any additional space cost, and that one of the main reasons that they used FPGA's was that it makes it a lot easier to handle backwards-compatibility with older stuff. Another reason FPGA's are so useful is that they can cram a lot more calculations into less space, making the entire unit more compact. [2] With that out of the way, yes, missiles now have a lot more computing power in them, even if they do more or less the same job- accuracy is generally the thing that improves here, as the physics models can be expanded to be more correct, as the number of sensors, and the way they are combined evolves, the end result is a better product. (And more Defence money, to boot!) I've gotta say one more thing, though- a lot of the stuff in the military, and that goes to it, is built off now-ancient processes, because A) contracts, B) If it works, don't fix it, and C) standardization, so you may not see an FPGA in every missile, but they're getting there. [1] this doesn't count as far as redundant parts are concerned, but it does give the engineers (and, by proxy, the customers) more trust in the outputs from the devices. [2] It also costs way less space (and therefore money, to some degree, because mil-spec enclosures are expensive), to get two 1U servers than it does to have one vacuum-tube operated mainframe.

by edge17 7y ago

HeWhoLurksLate 7y ago

It depends, it really does. One of the local aviation companies I got to tour had two processes- one for SMD (mostly automated) and one for THT (mostly soldered by hand). On the newer SMD processes, the most popular computing chips were Xilinx FPGA's, which were everywhere. The way it was explained to me was that the FPGA can handle internal redundancy [1] without any additional space cost, and that one of the main reasons that they used FPGA's was that it makes it a lot easier to handle backwards-compatibility with older stuff. Another reason FPGA's are so useful is that they can cram a lot more calculations into less space, making the entire unit more compact. [2] With that out of the way, yes, missiles now have a lot more computing power in them, even if they do more or less the same job- accuracy is generally the thing that improves here, as the physics models can be expanded to be more correct, as the number of sensors, and the way they are combined evolves, the end result is a better product. (And more Defence money, to boot!) I've gotta say one more thing, though- a lot of the stuff in the military, and that goes to it, is built off now-ancient processes, because A) contracts, B) If it works, don't fix it, and C) standardization, so you may not see an FPGA in every missile, but they're getting there. [1] this doesn't count as far as redundant parts are concerned, but it does give the engineers (and, by proxy, the customers) more trust in the outputs from the devices. [2] It also costs way less space (and therefore money, to some degree, because mil-spec enclosures are expensive), to get two 1U servers than it does to have one vacuum-tube operated mainframe.