Aerospace giant Raytheon just snagged a $20 million contract to create a first-of-its-kind electronics package for military sensors. Teaming up with chipmaker AMD, the company will cram cutting-edge commercial tech into a tiny multi-chip bundle to empower next-gen battlefield systems.
Raytheon plans to harness the bandwidth might of private sector processors and interconnect them using advanced industry standards. This allows peak data sharing speeds so no one chip bottlenecks the system.
“By partnering commercial technology with defense, we can accelerate future capabilities to our warfighters,” said Colin Whelan, Raytheon’s advanced tech president. The new tech will drive gains in performance, power, and weight compared to legacy milspec hardware.
To assemble the complex micro-machinery, Raytheon will leverage its domestic 3D packaging factories. Commercial chiplets get mounted onto the company’s own fabricated interposer using dense interconnect bridges between components.
The resulting compact system can translate huge flows of radio frequency data into digital signals for cognition and analysis. That enables advanced AI-powered applications dependent on heavy data crunching.
The sleek fitting allows next-gen sensors to be embedded on space-constrained platforms like jets, vehicles, and ships. And by riding the progress curve of consumer tech, speedy upgrades are possible without costly redesigns.
“Together, we will deliver the first multi-chip package featuring the latest in interconnect ability,” said an enthusiastic Whelan. His team now shifts focus from contract win to meticulous integration work in the months ahead.
Under the National Security Technology Accelerator initiative, the project aims to transition commercial innovation to national security gains as fast as possible.
