Package Converter Compliments Chip Obsolescence

The Semiconductor industry enabling today’s electronics market place is widely disseminated between multiple customer factions such as consumer electronics, telecommunications, automotive, medical devices, military, aerospace, industrial controls, embedded computing and other industries. A component’s life cycle for each industry varies drastically from 6 months to 10 years. The Semiconductor industry governed by realization of “Moore’s law” states doubling of the number of devices (or gates) per integrated circuit will occur, within a given geometric area, on regular 18 month intervals. This requires new processes, capital equipment, and new materials for next generation devices every two years. Inadvertently, it becomes expensive to maintain old equipment and processes which leads to chip obsolescence. Unavailability of chips primarily affects military electronics as the average life cycle of military hardware sometimes exceeds 10 years. A proactive approach permits a modular system for component upgrades. This typically involves microprocessor/micro controller device types. A modular system is not an economical option for all other components such as voltage regulators, analog to digital converters and ASIC devices. The reactive approach calls for lifetime buys, substitute devices, adapters with alternate devices or a complete redesign. Estimating lifetime buys has considerable risk and is prone to errors. A complete redesign is typically not an option as it consumes many design resources, includes additional approval and validation cycles and adds revised manufacturing costs. Substitute devices or adapters to convert alternate devices are the best possible options for chip obsolescence problems.