Past the sell-by date

Abstract

Thirty years ago, the military- industrial complex practically owned the electronics component business. Big contracts for weapons programmes helped fund many of the top names in semiconductors, including Intel. Even at the end of the 1980s, Intel was still designing processors, such as the 1960, that were aimed squarely at military users.But, ten years prior to that, a the personal computer had s begun to change the world: more and more of the market for electronics shifted to the fickle consumer sector. Once the consumer market dominated the business - according to the Semiconductor Industry Association PCs and cellphones now absorb 60 per cent of the world's chips - interest from the big suppliers slipped away. This paper discussses possible solutions to overcome the problem the defence sector has. One possible solution is to move to commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) products that are not designed with the military in mind. But moving to COTS products is not easy. The RoHS legislation that banned lead and other heavy metals from use in most components plays a part in the concerns over COTS as well as helping to take parts off the market. Rather than continuing to make the older parts that contain lead, a number of manufacturers have shifted production entirely to the lead- free versions. But reliability issues encountered in the world of consumer products, such as 'tin whiskers' shorting out contacts, have worried engineers in the defence sector. Also, as manufacturers wind down production, the fraudsters move in, offering counterfeit parts to companies desperate for replacements or continuing supplies for production.reliability.