Mark Lewis, director of defense research and engineering for modernization at the Pentagon, provided an update on the Department of Defense’s modernization efforts during his keynote on day one of the AFCEA/GMU Critical Issues in C4I Symposium.
Lewis is focused on the modernization priorities that will inform the warfighter of the future and will set them up to be successful in the 5-, 10- and 15-year time horizons.
Honeywell International Inc., Minneapolis, Minnesota, is awarded a $10,340,614 cost-plus-fixed-fee job order under basic ordering agreement N00164-18-G-GM66 for engineering sustainment support services of the strategic radiation-hardened microelectronics facility and production capability. Work will be performed in Plymouth, Minnesota, and is expected to be complete by March 2022.
Graf Research Corp. of Blacksburg, Virginia, has been awarded a $49,500,000 single award, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract with cost-plus-fixed-fee task orders for research and development. The contract provides for applied and advanced research for the advancement of trusted and assured microelectronics technologies; trust assessment strategies in areas related to known and potential system vulnerabilities; development and implementation of mitigation strategies and methodologies to prevent vulnerabilities; development and implementation of mitigation strategies and methodologies to prevent vulnerabilities before mitigation is required.
Battelle Memorial Institute, Columbus, Ohio, has been awarded a $42,156,000 bilateral, shared ceiling increase modification (P00003) to previously awarded FA8650-15-D-1953 for research and development. The Microelectronics and Embedded Systems Assurance (MESA) contract modification will provide for basic, applied, and advanced research and development to develop, evaluate, and facilitate the transition of technologies to improve the security and reliability of microelectronics and embedded systems. Work will be performed at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, and is expected to be completed by September 21, 2022. Total cumulative face value of the contract is $90,877,000. No funds are being obligated at the time of the award.
The National Science Foundation (NSF) is investing in a number of research institutes designed to advance quantum technologies in four broad areas: computation, communication, sensing and simulation. The institutes will foster multidisciplinary approaches to specific scientific, technological, educational, and workforce development goals in quantum technology, which could revolutionize computer and information systems.
The fight to secure microelectronic chips is becoming as basic as the chip itself. With chips facing a myriad of threats throughout their life cycle, experts are incorporating security measures into the development of the chip from the foundry to assembly. Other approaches safeguard against threats that could appear as the chip moves through the supply chain. The bottom line for microelectronics security is that necessary measures cannot wait until the device is in the hands of the user.
Nanosized robots capable of crawling around on a person’s brain or underneath the skin may sound like a nightmare to some, but researchers suggest the mini machines could serve medical purposes such as gathering data on the brain or the spinal column.
The colossal reliance on semiconductor chips by the military and commercial industry reaches across weapons, machines and systems that perform key defense and national security functions. And while the Defense Department and the industry use secure chips, they are expensive and hard to design. To remedy that, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, known as DARPA, is looking to automatically include defense mechanisms into the design of microchips. The agency is creating tools to manage the supply chain custody throughout the life cycle of a microchip and increase the availability and economics of secure microelectronics.
As semiconductor manufacturers aim to produce devices at the 5-nanometer node, the ability to find tiny defects created inadvertently during the fabrication process becomes harder. In addition, there is a growing need to verify that a chip was built as specified and doesn’t contain a malicious agent. Harnessing optical methods for semiconductor wafer inspection is one way to effectively look for anomalies, says Lynford Goddard, professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
IBM Global Business Services, Reston, Virginia (HQ0727-19-D-4000), is being awarded a $275,000,000 indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract. The purpose of this contract is to enable “trusted” manufacturing flows in the Trusted Foundry Access II contractor’s fabrication facilities; to enable a wide-range of associated leading-edge semiconductor technologies and services; and to create a trusted supply chain with the contractor, fully certified and accredited, to deliver classified and trusted mask and wafer fabrication within an “open” commercial environment. This program provides the additional layer of security to the commercial environment that permits government access to advanced technology manufacturing capabilities for t
Nimbis Services Inc.,* Oro Valley, Arizona, has been awarded a ceiling increase of $49,500,000 to their indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity (IDIQ) contract with cost-plus-fixed-fee task orders for research and development. The Trusted Silicon Stratus contract’s objective is to achieve an initial operational capability of a novel microelectronics life-cycle verification ecosystem implemented to enhance microelectronics supply chain risk management. Work will be performed in Columbus, Ohio. There are two orders currently on this IDIQ. The first task order (FA8650-18-F-1605) is expected to be complete by July 30, 2021, and the second task order (FA8650-18-F-1656) is expected to be completed by November 30, 2021.
The director of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, Steven Walker, pictures the future battlefield as a mosaic of lower-cost, less complex systems linked together in a vast number of ways to create desired, interwoven effects tailored to any scenario. The agency, known as DARPA, is standing up a new program office and investing in an array of technologies, from artificial intelligence to robotics to systems for hypersonic flight and space, to make that picture a reality.
RF Integration, Billerica, Massachusetts (HQ0727-18-D-SB01); Alpha Research & Technology, Desert Microelectronics Associates, and MicroNet Solutions Inc JV, El Dorado Hills, California (HQ0727-18-D-SB02); and Teledevices, Duluth, Georgia (HQ0727-18-D-SB03), are each being awarded an indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity (IDIQ), multiple award engineering services contract for the Advanced Technology Support Program IV (ATSP4) small business (SB).
Microelectronics Advanced Research Corp. (MARCO), Durham, N.C., has been awarded a $15,549,979 transaction for the Semiconductor Technology Advanced Research Network (STARnet). STARnet is a nationwide network of multi-university research centers that seeks to keep the U. S. Department of Defense and U.S. semiconductor and defense systems firms at the forefront of the global microelectronics revolution. These centers are focused on discovering solutions to the intractable problems that are forecast to lie in the future of integrated circuit progress and to lay the foundations for microsystems innovations once the improvements associated with Moore's Law are exhausted.
