Microcircuit Standards Development for Space Missions

ABSTRACT

NASA Electronic Parts Assurance Group (NEPAG) operates under the Mission Assurance Standards and Capabilities (MASC) division of the NASA Office of Safety and Mission Assurance (OSMA). All NASA missions, large or small, are important to mission assurance. The success of each mission counts.

 This presentation will describe the efforts underway where NEPAG has worked with DLA (Defense Logistics Agency), JC-13 (the manufacturers of government products), and CE-12 (the users of active devices) committees to ensure current military/aerospace standards address many challenges, one example being the insertion of new technology, the Class Y initiative, Class Y represents advancements in packaging technology, increasing functional density, and increasing operating frequency. The front-runner Class Y suppliers are offering functions such as processors, application-specific integrated circuits, and very high-speed analog to digital converters. The application spectrum has widened as well.

Despite severe disruptions caused by CoVID-19, we continued the standard activities in the last two years using virtual formats. The recent progress made in extending the standards coverage to other parts of the technology/application spectrum will also be described: the addition of organic Class Y into the draft of MIL-PRF-38535, revision M; a QMLP task group has developed the requirements for rad-hard/rad tolerant plastic encapsulated microcircuits; a new task group has taken off to develop requirements for 2.5D/3D devices; and others.

Speaker: Shri Agarwal – NASA (Jet Propulsion Laboratory)

Shri Agarwal represents NASA on DLA QA (Defense Logistics Agency’s Qualifying Activity) for space microcircuits. The QA conducts audits of space parts supply chain, approves new technology infusion into the military standards, and performs other related activities.

He was instrumental in developing the requirements for Class Y space microcircuits and helped make major updates to MIL-PRF-38535, the performance specification for microcircuits. He is the recipient of numerous awards for support to NASA flight projects. Shri serves as the vice-chair of SAE SSTC CE-12, and chair of the SAE SSTC CE-11/CE-12 Space Subcommittee.