September, 2022


www.us-tech.com


U.S. National Defense “Painted into a Corner”


Mission-Critical FPGAs: By Martin Hart, CEO, TopLine Corporation


to ensure a renewable and inexhaustible sup- ply, since by its very nature, such a product bears the status of strategic importance. This is especially true of mission-critical


W


field programmable gate array (FPGA) devices. An FPGA is an integrated circuit configurable by customers in the field, making such devices desirable for space and defense applications. A forti-


hen a specific type of electronic com- ponent becomes essential to our National Defense, it is only sensible


ply chain is vulnerable should that single supplier suddenly stop providing those serv- ices. Past production shortages in the semi- conductor industry, in general, have been short-lived because multiple vendors have been able to quickly step in to fill voids in the supply chain. That isn’t the case here.


Solder Columns Required Heritage hardware used in the aerospace


and defense industry is built on a platform of FPGA devices with solder columns instead of solder balls. Column grid array (CGA) FPGA packages engaged in mission-critical black Continued on page 55


Page 53


Only one subcontractor


in the U.S. is qualified to perform solder column attachment.


fied version, known as a radia- tion hardened (RadHard) FPGA, can withstand attacks from elec- tromagnetic and particle radia- tion in outer space. FPGAs require solder


columns, rather than solder balls, as a critical subcomponent in their final assembly. And yet makers of ruggedized FPGA devices depend upon a single sub- contractor to provide services to attach copper wrapped solder columns to FPGA. Should that sole subcontractor somehow go out of business or fail to meet a demand surge, that sudden shortage could result in warfight- ers not flying and rockets not launching. It could take years for alter-


native subcontractors to step in to fill the void. Today, only a sin- gle subcontractor is designated on the qualified manufacturer list (QML-38535) as a provider of copper wrapped solder column attachment services for the entire FPGA industry. The sup-


See at IMAPS


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