COTS Technology
Secretary of Defense William H. Perry and his administration mandated the movement to Commercial Off The Shelf memory or COTS technology in the Department of Defense (DoD) in 1994 with his memorandum, “Specs and Standards – A New Way of Doing Business.” The goal was to reduce development costs and to benefit from technology innovation, economies of scale, broad availability and improved time-to-market.
The adoption of commercial off the shelf memory and COTS technology can reduce the cost of both development and maintenance. A COTS upgrade can increase reliability, maintainability, and availability. However, the typical COTS suppliers’ product life cycle is 2-3 years, while the typical defense system development cycle is 7-15 years. The typical program lifecycle, including sustainment, is 25-40 years. Accordingly, there must be numerous technology refresh and insertion points.
To leverage the advances of COTS technology, WEDC caters to the defense/aerospace original equipment manufacturer (OEM) market by designing extended environment
semiconductor packages for multiple defense applications. This makes it possible to achieve desired levels of functionality with COTS technology, and then to upgrade those chips as new technology becomes available, thereby effectively maintaining
obsolescence management . The impact of obsolescence on embedded electronics is the foremost problem for mission-critical systems, and the biggest downside of COTS in long life cycle defense and aerospace electronics systems. COTS-based SiP and MCM designs can provide a clear pathway to technology independence and reduction of spiral development efforts for complex embedded electronics systems military and aerospace applications.
The use of advanced MCM and
SiP (System in Package) technology to employ commercial off the shelf memory, while eliminating a majority of diminishing manufacturing sources and material shortages (DMSMS), opens the door to reducing overall costs, power consumption, system size and weight. It also helps with memory obsolescence management and reliability issues and also provides capacity for adding features and future capabilities. Overall maintenance and management costs can be dramatically reduced while operational readiness is increased through improved reliability.
One key consideration in using commercial off the shelf memory is the availability of die, and dealing with die revisions, shrinks and die EOL. We maintain direct relationships with major US semiconductor suppliers and their distributors in order to monitor suppliers and die-EOL situations closely to insure a continuous source of supply.
Testing and evaluation are also very important considerations when using commercial off the shelf memory and COTS technology. WEDC has a full complement of design, simulation, evaluation and extended test capabilities for a wide variety of custom multichip packages, COTS memory, processors and combination MCPs for demanding applications. Additionally, our
defense microelectronic products can be ruggedized and processed for tamper resistance.
Advantages of using commercial off the shelf memory include:
- Latest commercially available technology
- Reduced development costs
- Reduced lead time
- Lower unit cost and startup costs
- Rapid prototyping
- Faster fielding and accelerated implementation
Disadvantages in using commercial off the shelf memory that WEDC can help mitigate:
- Lack of or incomplete evaluation/acceptance testing criteria
- Rapid changes in feature availability and timing
- Evolution of features
- Vendor viability
- A COTS-based system lifecycle differs from custom built systems.
Questions to consider when specifying COTS technology components in high-reliability applications include:
- Under what conditions is it acceptable to use commercially available components?
- Is it acceptable to use parts that are only specified to work over a specific temperature range, or do they actually need to have been tested to work at those temperatures?
- What constitutes testing a device? Does a memory device need to be tested 100% at speed over multiple patterns?
- What about voltage conditions? Is it important to test at temperature extremes?
- What controls are needed in place to assure that after development is completed, military expectations are satisfied?
Although COTS-based systems pose challenges, WEDC design, simulation, process control, extended environment testing and anti-tamper technologies make the most of commercial devices while reducing their risks and disadvantages, providing reliable yet cost-effective solutions for demanding applications.
