Honeywell has opened a semiconductor foundry in Plymouth, Minn., and along with it a radiation-hardened 150 nm process for manufacturing application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs) for military and aerospace applications.

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"Honeywell will begin producing the smallest, highest performance radiation-hardened integrated circuits available," says Ed Wheeler, vice president and general manager of Honeywell's Defense & Space Electronic Systems business. "This technology will enable advanced flight control and navigation systems, satellite data processing, high-speed communications, and space-based radar equipment," he adds.

Honeywell's Plymouth operation will provide a production infrastructure that supports scalable volume foundry services for commercial and strategic, high-performance ICs and systems-on-a-chip. The wafer foundry and development of the technology were funded by two Department of Defense organizations—the Defense Threat Reduction Agency and the Defense Production Act Title III Program Office.

The chip feature size of 150 nm enables designers to place nearly four times more transistors on an IC than was possible with previous-generation radiation-hardening technologies. Honeywell's radiation-hardened ICs are produced using silicon-on-insulator technology and can withstand the extreme operating environments of space.