Rochester explains how aerospace and defence buyers can be confident that critical components will remain available for long-life products and systems.
Aerospace and defence systems have lives that far exceed those of the components which go to make them. Long-term product availability is vital in these sectors and companies need to ensure a reliable long-term source of components is available.
Companies need to establish a sourcing partner that can offer long-term availability guarantees and also demonstrate a controlled transition process through end-of-life and into long-term fully authorised supply or even long-term production.
As an AS6496-compliant distributor and licensed manufacturer, Rochester Electronics continues to offer military grade semiconductors and packages long after the original component manufacturers discontinue them. In addition to the millions of components available in-stock, Rochester’s in-house hermetic assembly line offers a full complement of package styles including ceramic DIP, side brazed DIP, flat pack, CQFP, PGA, ceramic leadless chip carrier and metal can.
The company also offers a range of commercial and industrial components and can supply a custom flow built to meet the needs of source-controlled drawings.
Rochester’s in-house qualification and test facilities are designed to ensure risk-free sourcing of components in compliance with industry standards. The company is a QML manufacturer certified by DLA Land and Maritime to MIL-PRF-38535 offering Class Q and Class V microcircuits for military and aerospace applications.
Certifications include:
QML per MIL-PRF-38535
DLA-certified hermetic assembly, electrical test, burn-in and reliability lab to Mil-STD-883
Class Q (Class B) and Class V (Space) products
ISO9001: 2015
AS9120B:2016
QSLD DLA Certified, verifying Rochester as a critical supplier to DLA and meets the DLA standards for distribution processes
TAPA FSR-A: 2017
Rochester offers a range of manufactured products for military applications.
Intel: authorized source for all military grade CPUs and supporting memory products including 186/188/196/286/486 microprocessors.
Analog Devices: TigerSharc, BlackFin, and other Sharc DSPs.
Texas Instruments/National Semiconductor: TMS320C30/40/50 and F206/240 DSPs, op amps, regulators and logic devices in historic packages such as DIP, ceramic, metal can.
NXP Semiconductors: extended temperature MC68000 microprocessors, PowerPC processors.
IBM: PowerPC Processors including PPC750 series.
Cypress: FIFO and Dual Port SRAMs.
Ampleon: LDMOS, VDMOS, GaN1 PowerFETs for RF applications.
Intersil/Harris: historic military-grade voltage regulators, drivers, timers and controllers.
Rochester built products are manufactured using known-good-die stored in one of its two nitrogen wafer storage facilities and are tested to AS6496 standards using the original test processes employed by the original component manufacturer. Products retain their original part number because they are guaranteed to meet the original datasheet specification. As a 100 per cent authorised source, anti-counterfeiting standards that apply to independent suppliers such as AS6171 and AS6081 are not required.
For ongoing critical obsolete component needs, where Rochester does not hold available inventory or wafer to build, the company can leverage its test and design engineering experience to keep customers’ systems going.
Rochester can help with suitable alternatives (grades, speeds, finishes, packages) and the creation of additional testing parameters to provide the customer evidence needed to qualify the alternative.
Rochester can also support fundamental design changes such as the replacement of obsolete key components with ASIC solutions. The possibility exists in these cases to transition to an ASIC which has identical fit-form-function and is free of software changes and errata. This means that aerospace DO-254 re-qualifications, even for safety-critical (DAL-A) applications, can be greatly simplified as a minor change.
