Message posted by gary on December 07, 2000 at 02:56:12 EST:

I'm not a nuke expert, but do know integrated circuits. My only experience with rad-hard electronics dates back about 12 years. The trick back then was to build the IC on epi-wafers. It turns out that nearly all ICs today are built on epi for other reasons, so modern electronics is rad-hard. Now rad-hard is a space grade, not necessarily EMP resistant, but it will help.

Now the EMP is probably several orders of magnitude worse than building rad-hard integrated circuits for satellite use. The major problem with EMP tends to be the wiring, more than the electronics. The wiring is an antenna, though shielding or twisting the wire helps. Mini-EMP issues show up in real life. One source is the piezo ignition element in cigarette lighters. Those things put out a wicked broadband pulse. It turns out that gaming machines (aka gambling) had problems in the past with the EMP of a cigarette lighter, so they test new designs to make sure there are no unintended payouts. [Gee, do smokers gamble? ;-)]

Looking back at the article, this seems to be a fly-by-wire design, which in itself is nothing new. [For instance, the A320 is fly-by-wire.] The idea of on-demand electronics is relatively new in consumer electronics. [No clue what the military has been doing.] Notebook computers are full of on-demand electronics, but generally on-demand circuits do not respond as quickly as a regular design, so this may be a big deal to do something like this and make it as good as the old design, but perhaps at a fraction of the power.

In Reply to: Re: F-16 BREAKS SOUND BARRIER WITH NEW ELECTRICS SYSTEM posted by Magoo on December 06, 2000 at 16:13:46 EST:

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