NASA COMMISSIONED GUIDELINE REPORT ON THE USE OF COTS PLASTIC MICROCIRCUITS IN NASA SPACE FLIGHT HARDWARE - DRAFT (30 SEP 2004)

NASA COMMISSIONED GUIDELINE REPORT ON THE USE OF COTS PLASTIC MICROCIRCUITS IN NASA SPACE FLIGHT HARDWARE - DRAFT (30 SEP 2004)., Commercial Off-The-Shelf Plastic Encapsulated Microcircuits (COTS PEMs) are now being evaluated by the US DOD agencies, European Space Agency, and the National Aeronautical Space Agency, among others. For many years these agencies would not use COTS PEMs in their military and space hardware because of their reliability risk and even safety concerns. Today this is all changing and these same agencies are attempting to find ways to reduce the risk and at the same time reduce some of the development costs. The main drivers to use COTS are the lower procurement cost, more performance and functionality, and reduced size and weight. To this end NASA has also embarked on an ambitious path to gather real time data and evidence on COTS PEMs that will lead to more understanding and knowledge of COTS quality and reliability. NASA has spent three years of planning, testing, and analyzing COTS PEMs, under the NEPP Program, and has identified many of the quality and reliability risks associated with COTS PEMs if used in a demanding reliability application and in a radiation hostile environment. The nature of COTS is, of course, ongoing change to meet the needs of a demanding and competitive commercial market. Therefore, to stay abreast, the work must continue by NASA to refine all the information gathered and add new information as it becomes available. This NASA guideline and report shares NASA’s recent experiences with COTS PEMs reliability (non-radiation), gives examples of risk based on the data gathered and analysis, and makes recommendations that NASA believes will help steer the NASA design community and Project Managers to use COTS PEMs with confidence and minimum risk.