Project Defense-Aero

Improving Signal to Noise Ratios in Defense Electronics

By Chris Reynolds
AVX, Greenville, SC
http://www.avx.com

Considered as a vertical market, “Defense Electronics” takes in a wide range of systems, from hand-held portable communications to heavy transportation, from satellites and avionics to ship borne radar and undersea systems.

However, all of these system power architectures have common operational demands – they must be robust (shock, vibration, temperature extremes), highly reliable, able to power-up after periods of dormancy and must be based on components with minimal obsolescence…

http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/hearst/projectdefenseaero_201005/index.php?startid=5

Ease the Bottleneck in Next Generation Analog Designs

By Andrew Benn

e2v, Chelmsford, Essex, England
http://www.e2v.com

It doesn’t matter if you are a hardware designer, analog engineer, or a systems designer. With today’s tighter customer deadlines and worldwide competition, designers can’t afford delays in getting their products to market. As digital processing ‘horse-power’ continues its upward trend, analog designers are under close scrutiny to provide breakthrough solutions to unleash overall system performance.

The analog-to-digital converter (ADC) is undeniably one of the key components in networking and communications systems, providing the bridge between the analog and digital worlds. While logic engineers have reaped the benefits of improvements in digital processing speed, as well as in power consumption and footprint reductions, analog and systems engineers have been frustrated by the lack of similar improvements in ADC performance…

http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/hearst/projectdefenseaero_201005/index.php?startid=10

Mitigating Up-Screening Risk

By John O’Boyle
Maxim Integrated Products
Sunnyvale, CA
http://www.maxim-ic.com

Many companies “up-screen” commercial ICs for operation in harsh environments (typically extended temperature). Although the parts initially appear to function properly, hidden elements can impact reliability and cause failure.

These hidden elements typically foster electromigration of the metal interconnect on the die and lead to premature device failure. Up-screening cannot realistically catch all possible electromigration events, especially on a die that has really been designed for commercial temperature…

http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/hearst/projectdefenseaero_201005/index.php?startid=14

Welcome to the first issue of Project Defense-Aero

Design requirements for the Mil-Aero industry are highly specialized – sometimes polar opposites – like needing cutting edge devices that won’t become obsolete. But consumers of mil-aero products also have some common needs such as products that have the ability to withstand and perform in harsh environments.

To help you meet your military design needs, here are three excellent technical articles that are full of insightful information for mil-aero requirements.

The first article offers help to improve power distribution quality over a wide spectrum of signals from digital to RF power through implementation of various low inductance, low ESR power filter capacitors. These innovative input and output capacitors employ novel technology designed to positively impact power supply noise in battery, fuel cell, and avionic systems.

The next article delves into how high-speed data converters can provide a fast-lane bridge between analog and digital worlds in network and communications systems. These same ADCs can be the bottleneck or offer a wide open expressway if they have certain characteristics such as a flat response in a dynamic range and noise characteristics across a wide analog input frequency.

The final article is important for users of COTS parts that operate at 70°C and higher. It talks about the concept of up-screening — when to use it and what the potential down-side is, especially when considering electromigration of the metal interconnects on semiconductor die.

Paul O’Shea

For more on Project Defense-Aero, visit

www.electronicproducts.com/projectdefenseaero

http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/hearst/projectdefenseaero_201005/