While the defense budget continues to increase with time in order to ensure that the military is armed with equipment that exploits the leading-edge technologies, the government is also creating new programs to cut cost and unnecessary waste in maintaining existing systems, without compromising the quality and reliability of these systems in the field.

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The rate at which technologies are advancing, an older-generation part is becoming obsolete in a short period of time. As suppliers move on to new-generation processes and technologies, the older parts must continue to be supplied so that the systems using these parts do not suffer when they have to be replaced in the field. So companies like Lansdale Semiconductor have stepped in to ensure the military and DoD that obsolete parts will be supplied with exact copies of the original part when needed.

However, the company feels that the switch from MIL-M-38510 (QPL) to MIL-PRF-38535 (QML) has created a condition where military standardized parts do not conform to best commercial practices and may even violate current configuration management practices. To inform our readers about this change in procurement policy, we have invited Lansdale Semiconductor to write an article that takes us through the historical changes that have led to the dilution of requirements within MIL-PRF-38535.

According to the authors of this article, “Is part standardization becoming obsolete?,” the MIL-PRF-38535 has lost sight of the fact that these parts are being used in military weapon systems. Instead, it has focused on the manufacturing systems used to produce them. The MIL-M-38510 specification did not allow parts emulated using a different device technology to use the same part number as original devices. However, it appears that MIL-PRF-38535 (QML) has been written specifically to allow this, even though it violates best commercial practices as defined in the EIA specification for AQEC parts and configuration management definitions from the G-12 and JC13.2 committees, according to Lansdale. If MIL-PRF-38535 does not come back in line with best commercial practices and configuration management practices, more manufacturers will stop using it, say the authors.

While the Department of Defense's (DoD) reason for allowing emulated parts to keep the same part number as the original product is the cost of changing bills of materials for military systems, supplier's contention is that not changing the part numbers may turn out to be much more costly. If the generalized emulation of microcircuit or GEM part is not behavioral compatible with the system it is being placed in, that system may not function when under stress. Another reason given is that the GEM parts were studied for five years and they have had no reported failures. Lansdale's response to that is that the GEM parts were tailored to the systems in these studies and not all systems have been verified to be able to use the GEM part in their application. Although emulation of truly unprocurable parts is a good thing for weapons system logistic support, these parts should not have the same part number because they just aren't the same, asserts Lansdale Semiconductor.

While the above article, which is number three in order, discusses issues with part standardization, the number two article focuses on software radio application programming interface (API) for digital polar transmitter. A new digital polar design that facilitates software-defined radio (SDR) transmitters has been developed by M/A-COM, Tyco Electronics. This new transmitter technology features a complete, digital baseband to RF/PA transmit chain that comprises a novel digital power amplifier and transmit IC. This article, “Interface considerations for SDR using digital transmitters” introduces M/A-COM's software radio transmitter topology and proposes an API set that supports a variety of transmitter configurations, including unconventional implementations that offer reduced part count, smaller footprint and lower power consumption.

The number one article, written by EaglePicher Energy Products Corp., takes aim at high battery costs for military systems. It shows how to cut costs by helping soldiers determine the remaining run time of batteries they might otherwise discard, as well as increasing the use of rechargeable batteries in the battlefield.