4 ms·

You can't crowd source mil-spec ICs. Many have no commercial equivalent and even when they do they often use unusual packages that can't be sourced anywhere els

You can't crowd source mil-spec ICs. Many have no commercial equivalent and even when they do they often use unusual packages that can't be sourced anywhere else.

pnpnp 3y ago
I completely agree with this. Mil-spec and certified ICs are a completely different beast. As we can see, they have to survive decades in storage, need an absurdly high pass rate, need to survive incredible abuse in battlefield situations AND survive who-knows-how-many G’s of acceleration (/ vibration) catching up to a target.
- dghlsakjg 3y ago
  That sounds a lot like car grade electronics, TBH. I suspect that there is some combination of military contractors forgetting how to move fast, and the military being so wrapped up in process instead of results at play here.
  - squarefoot 3y ago
    Acceleration isn't the biggest problem on such light devices, vibrations are. Those boards are exposed to high frequency vibrations that could detach or crack components because the pcb resonates inflecing rapidly back and forth.
  - somerandomqaguy 3y ago
    A stinger missile has a rocket motor who's back blast can easily cause serious injuries or death to a grown adult man; every manual for shoulder launch munitions calls to make sure that the backblast area of a launcher is clear of friendlies. There's 1.02kg of HTA high explosive to launch shrapnel with. The M67 fragmentation grenade carries 0.182 kg of high explosive, kill radius of 5 meters, injury radius of 15 meters. Would you want, "Move fast and break things," development attitude with an electronically detonated bomb less then an inch from your head?
    - dghlsakjg 3y ago
      There’s a difference between being able to iterate quickly and move fast, and the “move fast and break things” ethos. The P-51 Mustang went from conception to flying prototype in 179 days by a company that had never built a fighter before. Fighters aren’t famous for being lower stakes than bazookas. I know that complexity doesn’t scale linearly, but we can use the Dragon vs Starliner development to make the point that legacy military contractors have forgotten how to move with purpose. The Starliner capsule has been in development for longer than the entire Apollo program, is years overdue, and still has no scheduled crew test flight. The dragon, meanwhile, made by a company that famously moves fast, has successfully, and safely, been flying crewed missions for years. That seems pretty high stakes to me…
iancmceachern 3y ago
Yes you can. Google is literally doing it now, and it's free! https://developers.google.com/silicon https://developers.google.com/silicon 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
- nostrademons 3y ago
  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.
  - iancmceachern 3y ago
    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. There are many mil spec fpgas available
  - eimrine 3y ago
    > intense acceleration, intense heat, transport in dust-laden inhospitable climates, years of storage afterwards What of these points can not survive an iPhone motherboard without battery and display?
    - pnpnp 3y ago
      The kind of vibration produced while strapped to a rocket motor is completely different that what iPhones normally experience. Most people underestimate how violent that environment can be.
gonzo41 3y ago
The MCI can move fast if there's an incentive. Take the paveway gbu-28, 10 weeks from design to production use in war. Then there's WW2, and the B21. It's the most American thing in the world to bid as high as possible at times like these.
salawat 3y ago
Can too. In fact, I know someone who used to do a lot of teardown of parts for F14's. Grumman at one time was making money hand over fist sourcing COTS microprocessors, acid washing off the identifying marks, flipping them over, then remounting them to final assemblies, and charging the Government a 2500% markup per unit until the deception was found out. Frankly, I think the Government should 100% own the specs, and let anyone who wants to take a shot at building them cheaper do so.
hef19898 3y ago
Alao, in case of the stinger, ypu talk about compatability issies woth a myriad of other systems, oldy really old and new. After all, it can be fired as aanpad, from air vehicles, ground vehicles and from sea. The existing design is guaranteed to work with all platforms it can currently be fired from. Changing the design means loosing that guarantee, and would require a tremendous amount of testing. So, there is a kernel of truth in saying it will expensive to recreate production tech to build current spec stingers. Also true that this kernel of truth is great opportunity to get more funding.
callalex 3y ago
Why not?

You can't crowd source mil-spec ICs. Many have no commercial equivalent and even when they do they often use unusual packages that can't be sourced anywhere else.

pnpnp 3y ago

I completely agree with this. Mil-spec and certified ICs are a completely different beast. As we can see, they have to survive decades in storage, need an absurdly high pass rate, need to survive incredible abuse in battlefield situations AND survive who-knows-how-many G’s of acceleration (/ vibration) catching up to a target.

dghlsakjg 3y ago
That sounds a lot like car grade electronics, TBH. I suspect that there is some combination of military contractors forgetting how to move fast, and the military being so wrapped up in process instead of results at play here.
- squarefoot 3y ago
  Acceleration isn't the biggest problem on such light devices, vibrations are. Those boards are exposed to high frequency vibrations that could detach or crack components because the pcb resonates inflecing rapidly back and forth.
- somerandomqaguy 3y ago
  A stinger missile has a rocket motor who's back blast can easily cause serious injuries or death to a grown adult man; every manual for shoulder launch munitions calls to make sure that the backblast area of a launcher is clear of friendlies. There's 1.02kg of HTA high explosive to launch shrapnel with. The M67 fragmentation grenade carries 0.182 kg of high explosive, kill radius of 5 meters, injury radius of 15 meters. Would you want, "Move fast and break things," development attitude with an electronically detonated bomb less then an inch from your head?
  - dghlsakjg 3y ago
    There’s a difference between being able to iterate quickly and move fast, and the “move fast and break things” ethos. The P-51 Mustang went from conception to flying prototype in 179 days by a company that had never built a fighter before. Fighters aren’t famous for being lower stakes than bazookas. I know that complexity doesn’t scale linearly, but we can use the Dragon vs Starliner development to make the point that legacy military contractors have forgotten how to move with purpose. The Starliner capsule has been in development for longer than the entire Apollo program, is years overdue, and still has no scheduled crew test flight. The dragon, meanwhile, made by a company that famously moves fast, has successfully, and safely, been flying crewed missions for years. That seems pretty high stakes to me…

iancmceachern 3y ago

Yes you can. Google is literally doing it now, and it's free! https://developers.google.com/silicon https://developers.google.com/silicon 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

nostrademons 3y ago
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.
- iancmceachern 3y ago
  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. There are many mil spec fpgas available
- eimrine 3y ago
  > intense acceleration, intense heat, transport in dust-laden inhospitable climates, years of storage afterwards What of these points can not survive an iPhone motherboard without battery and display?
  - pnpnp 3y ago
    The kind of vibration produced while strapped to a rocket motor is completely different that what iPhones normally experience. Most people underestimate how violent that environment can be.

gonzo41 3y ago

The MCI can move fast if there's an incentive. Take the paveway gbu-28, 10 weeks from design to production use in war. Then there's WW2, and the B21. It's the most American thing in the world to bid as high as possible at times like these.

salawat 3y ago

Can too. In fact, I know someone who used to do a lot of teardown of parts for F14's. Grumman at one time was making money hand over fist sourcing COTS microprocessors, acid washing off the identifying marks, flipping them over, then remounting them to final assemblies, and charging the Government a 2500% markup per unit until the deception was found out. Frankly, I think the Government should 100% own the specs, and let anyone who wants to take a shot at building them cheaper do so.

hef19898 3y ago

Alao, in case of the stinger, ypu talk about compatability issies woth a myriad of other systems, oldy really old and new. After all, it can be fired as aanpad, from air vehicles, ground vehicles and from sea. The existing design is guaranteed to work with all platforms it can currently be fired from. Changing the design means loosing that guarantee, and would require a tremendous amount of testing. So, there is a kernel of truth in saying it will expensive to recreate production tech to build current spec stingers. Also true that this kernel of truth is great opportunity to get more funding.

callalex 3y ago

Why not?