Microsoft is building custom chips for the US military

Date:
Thu, 18 Nov 2021 15:35:21 +0000

Description:
Microsoft leads consortium to develop ICs and SoCs for use by the US military.

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The US National Security Technology Accelerator (NSTXL) has selected
Microsoft and Qualcomm to build custom chips for the US military as part of the second phase of the Rapid Assured Microelectronics Prototypes (RAMP) project.

Microsoft explains that historically the security requirements associated
with developing microelectronics for the military have limited the ability of the US Department of Defense (DoD) to leverage the latest innovations.

However, the idea with RAMP is to leverage commercial best practices to help accelerate the development process and bring reliable, secure
state-of-the-art microelectronic design and manufacturing to national
security and defense applications.

Earlier in August, NSTXL had awarded a similar contract to chipmakers Intel and Qualcomm, as part of RAMP-Commercial (RAMP-C) program . Defense supply chain

Microsoft explains that DoD hopes to leverage the RAMP project to employ a scalable microelectronic supply chain, while ensuring that the design and manufacturing meets its security and compliance requirements.

As part of its role in the second phase of the RAMP project, Microsoft has engaged several microelectronics partners across the commercial and defense industrial base, including BAE Systems, Cadence Design Systems, GlobalFoundries, Siemens EDA, Raytheon Intelligence and Space, and others.

Without sharing any details about the chips thatll be designed in this phase, Microsoft says the objective with the new designs is to help lower power consumption, improve performance, reduce physical size, and improve their reliability for use in DoD systems.

The RAMP solution will provide an advanced microelectronics development platform for mission-critical applications, with cloud , AI [artificial intelligence], and machine learning -enabled automation, security, and quantifiable assurance, shared Microsoft, adding that it will host the solution in Azure Government .



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Link to news story: https://www.techradar.com/news/microsoft-is-building-custom-chips-for-the-us-m ilitary/


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