19 octobre 2020 | International, C4ISR
WASHINGTON — The U.S. Department of Defense has awarded contracts worth $197.2 million for microelectronics, it announced Thursday, amid concerns about with much production of the technology is taking place outside the United States.
The Pentagon awards are part of the department's desire to entice microelectronics manufacturing back into the United States. Microelectronics are at the core of technologies the department considers critical to national security, such as artificial intelligence, quantum computing and 5G communications capabilities.
“The microelectronics industry is at the root of our nation's economic strength, national security, and technological standing," said Michael Kratsios, acting undersecretary of defense for research and engineering. The “awards support the Department's mission to promote microelectronics supply chain security and accelerate U.S. development of the very best in circuit design, manufacturing, and packaging. It's critical for the DOD and American industry to work together in meaningful partnerships to ensure the United States leads the world in microelectronics far into the future.”
As part of the awards, Microsoft and IBM are splitting an other transaction authority contract worth $24.5 million “to advance commercial leading-edge microelectronics physical ‘back-end' design methods with measurable security.” The award is a phase one deal under the DoD's Rapid Assured Microelectronics Prototypes using Advanced Commercial Capabilities Project.
Another contract, valued at $172.7 million, was awarded to both Intel Federal and Qorvo to “develop and demonstrate a novel approach towards measurably secure, heterogeneous integration and test of advanced packaging solutions.” The award was given under phase two of the State-of-the-Art Heterogeneous Integration Prototype Program.
“These awards highlight how the Department is moving towards a new quantifiable assurance strategy that will help the DOD quickly and safely build and deploy leading-edge microelectronics technologies,” the Pentagon's news release said.
The department is increasingly concerned about the microsystems market because much of the production process takes place overseas, particularly in or near China. The department fears this allows China to implement backdoors into critical national security systems.
Because of the current market structure, "we can no longer identify the pedigree of our microelectronics,” Ellen Lord, the undersecretary of defense for acquisition and sustainment, said at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's Electronics Resurgence Initiative Summit in August.
“Therefore we can no longer ensure that backdoors, malicious code or data exfiltration commands aren't embedded in our code. While we develop the ability to identify the technical path to ensure all components, circuits and systems are clean regardless of their manufacturing location, we need to find a path to domestic sources to provide a secure and resilient supply of legacy, state-of-the-present and state-of-the-art microelectronics.”
15 juillet 2022 | International, Aérospatial
The conundrum of overcoming enemy air defenses is currently on display in Ukraine, where Ukrainian and Russian air-defense capabilities are effectively canceling out the other side's air power arsenal.
26 mai 2020 | International, Aérospatial, Naval, Terrestre, C4ISR, Sécurité
Les présidents du Gifas et du BDLI appellent à une accélération de l'engagement de la France et de l'Allemagne sur les programmes de défense pour contre-balancer les effets de la crise sur la filière aéronautique civile. Une supply chain duale Face à une filière aéronautique civile confrontée à la première crise systémique de sa jeune histoire, Eric Trappier et Dirk Hoke, respectivement président du Gifas et président du BDLI, appellent « d'une même voix et d'une façon urgente à un plan de relance européen ambitieux en faveur de l'aéronautique civile pour préserver l'avenir ». Et cela passe notamment par « un soutien fort au niveau européen aux domaines de la défense et de l'espace, au moment où les enjeux budgétaires et de souveraineté sont cruciaux ». En clair, une accélération et un engagement plus fort des gouvernements français et allemands dans les programmes de défense mais aussi spatiaux peuvent venir « contre-balancer utilement la baisse d'activité de la filière aéronautique civile et dont les conséquences sur la chaîne des fournisseurs mettent en danger un certain nombre d'ETI et PME», souligne Eric Trappier qui est aussi président de Dassault Aviation. « D'autant que nombre de ces entreprises ont une activité duale. Elles sont présentes à la fois dans le civil et le militaire », poursuit-il. Accélérer sur le SCAF « Ces ETI et PME sont également vitales par le caractère unique de leurs savoir-faire. Si elles ne survivent pas à la crise, nous souffrirons tous », surenchérit Dirk Hoke qui ajoute : « il faut donc accélérer sur le volet défense pour également préserver nos capacités qui sont cruciales pour réaliser l'autonomie stratégique et la souveraineté de l'Europe ». Une claire allusion au programme SCAF qui ne s'appuie pour l'instant que sur une enveloppe de 150 M€ pour une durée de dix-huit mois. Ce contrat-cadre appelé Phase 1A doit déboucher sur des financements plus substantiels avec 4 Md€ prévus d'ici à 2025. Raison de plus pour débloquer de nouveaux fonds et plus vite dans le contexte actuel. Financer la R&T sur l'avion durable Pour les présidents du Gifas et du BDLI, le deuxième volet de ce plan relance européen européen ambitieux en faveur de l'aéronautique civile est le soutien aux efforts conjoints « de la profession en faveur de l'innovation et d'une aviation responsable, intégrant les enjeux liés à l'environnement ». Pour Dirk Hoke, qui est aussi président d'Airbus Defence and Space, l'abandon du projet E-Fan X, un démonstrateur dédié aux essais de propulsion électrique, ne signifie nullement que le constructeur européen a renoncé à ses travaux de recherche sur la décarbonisation de l'aviation. Si Airbus a suspendu le programme E-Fan X, le constructeur, en collaboration avec Siemens et le DLR, l'équivalent de l'Onera en Allemagne, a également réalisé des travaux sur la propulsion à hydrogène sur un démonstrateur baptisé HY4 qui a d'ailleurs réalisé un premier vol dès 2016. Au décollage, une batterie lithium-ion fournit l'électricité, mais en vol, une pile à combustible puise de l'hydrogène dans un réservoir maintenu à basse température pour produire un courant électrique par réaction avec l'oxygène de l'air, puis rejette de la vapeur d'eau. De son côté, Dassault Aviation a identifié plusieurs applications possibles avec des piles pouvant alimenter des fonctions de base « telles que les charges de cabines avions, les sources d'énergie pour les équipements, les galleys ou cuisines », voire même « des fonctions intégrées comme l'alimentation de secours ou le remplacement de l'unité auxiliaire de puissance ». Plus dans notre prochain numéro 2689 du 22 mai. https://www.air-cosmos.com/article/la-dfense-une-des-clefs-de-la-relance-23110
21 octobre 2018 | International, Aérospatial, Naval, Terrestre, C4ISR, Sécurité
BY MARCUS WEISGERBER Soon after the companies announced plans to form the world's 7th-largest defense firm, the CEOs rang up for a joint interview. On Sunday, just after L3 Technologies and Harris Corp. announced their planned merger next year, I chatted with CEOs Chris Kubasik and Bill Brown about their plans to form L3 Harris Technologies, which would be the world's 7th-largest defense firm. Here are some excerpts. Q. How did this come together? Brown: Chris and I have known each other for a number of years here, and a lot of it started more socially, not from a business perspective. We work in the same space as complimentary businesses, complementary portfolios. Same [main] customer. You know we realized, given where we stack up in the defence hierarchy, this would be a great potential combination. We've been discussing it through the balance of this calendar year. [It] really picked up steam in the summer and were able to bring it forward here towards middle October. Q. Why a merger rather than an acquisition by one partner? Kubasik: Both companies are quite strong, and we're both on an upswing, and we looked at all the different stakeholders from the customers, the shareholders and the employees. And in our relative size and market value, a merger vehicle seems to be the absolute right way to go here. True partnership, as you've probably seen. 50/50 board. Bill and I have our leadership laid out clearly. It's absolutely the right way to do this. We're quite proud that we're able to pull it off. And I think it's the best way to serve all the stakeholders. Q. Bill is going to be CEO until a transition to Chris in a couple of years. How will that work? And what happens to L3's New York office if the headquarters moves to Florida? Brown: The combination in bringing these two great companies together is going to take a lot of work. So Chris and I will partner on this, in leading the company [and] clearly doing a lot of the integration. We're going to chair the integration committee together. I'll have responsibility for the enterprise functions, and Chris will keep an eye on the ball in what we do operationally in the business segments making sure that through to the integration we don't miss a beat in our growth agenda, meeting expectations of customers, delivering on programs. It's going to be a shared partnership in bringing the companies together. Kubasik: On a combined basis, we have several thousand employees in the state of New York, a lot in Rochester, of course Long Island and the surrounding areas. We got to do to what we believe is best for the business. When you look at the Space Coast of Florida, the 7,000 or so employees and infrastructure in the Melbourne area, it's an easy decision. We'll be transitioning from the headquarters from New York and taking the best of the best and moving to Florida. At some point the Manhattan office will either be significantly scaled down or ultimately closed. Q. Will the combined company divest or combine overlapping sectors? Bill Brown: Very high and complimentary portfolios. So we see very, very, very little overlap. Q. L3 has been on an acquisition spree in recent years. Should we expect more, perhaps in the maritime sphere? Kubasik: Job one is going to be the integration for the first couple years, so there will be very, very few, if any, acquisitions the first couple of years. They would have to be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. We're going to focus first and foremost on integrating this company. Once we get this integrated, which is a three-year program, we'll update and modify the strategy as appropriate. Correction: An earlier version of this article misstated the proposed merged company's rank by revenue among global defense firms. This Q&A is part of the weekly Global Business Brief newsletter by Marcus Weisgerber. Find the rest of this week's issue here,and subscribe to get it in your inbox, here. https://www.defenseone.com/business/2018/10/q-ceos-chris-kubasik-and-bill-brown-l3-technologies-and-harris-corps/152135