Articles
PCOTS versus LRU: COTS moving up the integration food chain September 05, 2011
The COTS proposition, taking state-of-the-art commercial semiconductor technology and deploying it on open-standard military board architectures, is rapidly migrating up the technology food chain to the preconfigured subsystem level. Packaged COTS (PCOTS) subsystems are being driven by customer interest in reducing design risk and time to market, leading them to turn to traditional board vendors who have expertise in packaging and thermal management. PCOTS fully integrated “standard” systems enable development cost and improvements to be distributed over multiple users and programs, which drives increases in performance and economies of scale. There is also a place for both Line Replaceable Units (LRUs) as individual modules and packaged subsystems based on LRUs.
The packaged COTS advantage
In addition to ensured interoperability of the boards and mezzanine cards that populate their system, the PCOTS approach significantly simplifies system development by reducing vendor interaction to a “one-stop shop” – easing the pain that can occur when multiple third-party vendors are depended upon. The reality is that almost all deployed systems will require some unique modification. While vendors are able to offer a comprehensive range of proven, qualified systems that match most of a customer’s requirements, Non Recurring Engineering (NRE) will be needed to get to the completed system. But the advantage for the customer is fast turnaround on a deployable system from an integrator who is using a common set of familiar building blocks and proven IP. PCOTS also frees the customer from the time and cost of dedicating a hardware integration team, enabling them instead to focus on the software, where true uniqueness and their value-add typically resides.
Five Approaches to Cooling Military Electronics October 01, 2011
Defense Tech Briefs
Seventy-one degrees C is the temperature of a steak done medium-well. It is also the temperature of an oven used to test thermal characteristics of military electronics. Electronic components in the COTS industry often have temperature limits of 85°C, leaving 14°C of thermal potential to move the heat generated by the components away. Among various cooling approaches, the correct solution for your application depends on meeting your requirements at the lowest possible cost and complexity.
VME and VPX Data Storage Solutions Face Airborne Challenges December 01, 2011
COTS Journal
Developing mission-critical data storage is hard enough on the ground. Add in the complex requirements of VME-and VPX-based airborne systems, and the game changes dramatically.
