FPGA - Persistence is About to Pay Off

Martin Hart TopLine Corporation

FOR QUITE SOME TIME WE HAVE been raising an ongoing Call to Action to the semiconductor and defense industries concerning a potential threat of a critical shortage of ruggedized Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) components with solder columns. These devices form a vital part of many defensive and aerospace essential systems. Without these mission-critical FPGA devices, warfighters might not fly, and many defense guidance systems might not operate. The threat has been hiding in plain sight and visible to engineers and civilian managers in charge. For well over 20 years, the industry has been dependent on just one monopoly subcontractor who is qualified to perform a specific type of assembly service needed to attach copper-wrapped solder columns to FPGA as the final critical step in their manufacture. It seems crazy.

Stating the Problem

The nation’s top 10 makers of ruggedized FPGA devices have been forced to use this single subcontractor designated on the Defense Logistics Agency’s (DLA) Qualified Manufacturer List (QML-38535) as a provider of copperwrapped solder column attachment services for the entire FPGA industry. Such a monopoly is outright dangerous. It is well understood that any supply chain dependent upon a single supplier is inherently vulnerable. It is, in a word, scary, particularly when we consider the current and accelerating military threats building against the United States.

We’ve been pursing action to develop a solution to resolve this. Over 25 articles published in this MEPTEC Report as well as in various other publications, have sounded the alarm, described the problem, and proposed viable solutions. We hoped for responses from individuals within the industry, and yet, like the mountaineer calling out into a chasm, we’ve heard only the echoes of our own voice. We wondered if indeed we were heard, or even noticed; but now we can say, happily, that our call and our concerns have finally been heard after all.

Risk Assessment

The problem and its ramifications, should a real FPGA shortage ensue, cannot be emphasized strongly enough. But take heart; the defense and aerospace

Change is a Coming

A sea-change in direction is bursting onto the scene. Apparently, global instability, the COVID pandemic, and the demonstrated fragility of the global supply chain has moved decision makers to be more proactive in responding to threats. At a recent electronics manufacturing conference on the U.S. west coast, there was much talk flying about, all echoing common themes, such as on-shoring is coming back to U.S. manufacturing. Supply chain uncertainties make it more advisable to build things at home once again, alleviating uncertainties in trusting people who may not be your friends to make sensitive military parts. Advances in robotics and automation, meanwhile, have boosted precision manufacturing speed, volume, and capability to compensate for the lack of skilled assembly personnel that followed the pandemic. Production of defense-grade FPGA and ASIC devices with solder columns occupies a fragile market. America will soon broaden its supply base to include multiple suppliers who are capable of making and attaching solder columns for aerospace and defense grade FPGA components.

Conclusion

Happily, the Department of Defense DLA has resumed field audits for certifying Column Grid Array column attachment providers. Certifications of vendors for column attachment services are imminently on the way.

industry has a solution, and is moving forward to qualify multiple vendors for critical processes including column attachment services. This remedy requires a relatively low investment by FPGA device makers. Fabrication of copper-wrapped solder columns is not a simple matter and requires correct knowhow, manufacturing equipment and proficient operator skills to achieve.

This is very good news; the decades long monopoly streak of the single source subcontractor, one who provides 90% of America’s solder column attachment services, will fade into the sunset. In upcoming months, the industry will soon have more choices for column attachment services.

We will all be safer, and so will our Nation’s defense capability. ◆