Electronic components are fundamental to modern aerospace, playing a critical role in the development, operation, and safety of aircraft and spacecraft. These aerospace components are designed to deliver the precision and reliability required by the aerospace industry, ensuring optimal performance even under extreme environmental conditions. Essential components like ICs, FPGAs, and MCUs are the driving force behind key systems such as radar, communication, navigation, and onboard computers, making them indispensable to the advancement of aerospace technology.
Aerospace
The aerospace industry plays an important role in global transportation and space exploration, including two key areas: aeronautics and astronautics.
Aeronautics involves the design, development and production of aircraft, including commercial plans, military jets and helicopters.
Astronautics is dedicated to spacecraft and related technologies such as satellites, space probes, and crewed space missions.
Aerospace Semiconductor Market
According to Global Market Insights, the Aerospace semiconductor market was valued at over $35 billion in 2023 and is anticipated to grow at a CAGR of over 8% between 2024 and 2032. Aerospace components are important in advancing new space technologies, and as the demands of space missions and satellite functions evolve, the need for semiconductors will continue to rise.
Market Trends
The growing demand for advanced avionics drives the aerospace industry to seek high-performance components essential for automation, communication, and navigation. As this demand intensifies, IoT integration is further elevating the need for semiconductors capable of real-time data processing. In addition, to meet strict aerospace requirements, manufacturers are developing smaller, lighter, and more power-efficient chips in response to the industry’s focus on lightweight and fuel-efficient designs. Moreover, the application of machine learning in autonomous decision-making and predictive maintenance is fueling the need for aerospace components that can handle increasingly complex computations.
Semiconductors in Aerospace
Semiconductors are fundamental aerospace electronic components that regulate the flow of electric currents, supporting vital operations in aerospace systems such as navigation, communication, power generation, and more. These aerospace components are made to endure harsh environments such as high altitudes, radiation, and temperature changes, allowing devices to function dependably in settings where precision and safety are vital.
Powering Aerospace
Semiconductors are crucial aerospace components that play a pivotal role in various systems, including radar, communication, and navigation systems, as well as onboard computers.
Radar Systems: Radar systems are heavily dependent on semiconductors for their functionality. These systems emit radio waves that interact with objects and then return to the radar, providing critical information about the object’s location, speed, and direction. Aerospace components are key in generating these radio waves, amplifying the signals, and processing the returned data to extract valuable insights.
Communication Systems: Communication is essential in aerospace, and semiconductors enable effective communication between devices. They are at the heart of transmitters and receivers, allowing the conversion of voice and data into electrical signals and back again.
Navigation Systems: Modern navigation systems, including GPS and INS, depend on aerospace components to provide precise and reliable positioning data. Semiconductors enable these systems to swiftly and efficiently process complex algorithms, delivering real-time information on position, velocity, and orientation to pilots or automated systems.
Onboard Computers: Onboard computers in aircraft and spacecraft handle a wide range of functions, such as flight control, system monitoring, and data recording. These computers are equipped with semiconductor-based microprocessors and memory chips, providing high-speed processing and reliable data storage capabilities.
Key Aerospace Components
The aerospace components essential to the operation of aircraft and spacecraft include integrated circuits, field programmable gate arrays, and microcontrollers.
Integrated Circuits
Integrated circuits from manufacturers such as Intel, Xilinx, NXP, Texas Instruments, and ADI are key components powering aerospace technology. These aerospace components allow for the creation of miniaturized electronic systems in an industry where space and weight are of importance. Additionally, ICs provide high-speed processing capabilities which is essential for real-time data processing and decision-making in flight control, navigation and communication systems.
Integrated Circuits in Aerospace Benefits
- Enhanced Safety
- Improved Communication and Navigation
- Cost-effective
- Increased System Integration
- Durability and Longevity
Field Programmable Gate Arrays
FPGAs are another important component powering aircraft and spacecraft due their exceptional versatility. FPGAs are perfect for addressing difficult problems in aerospace due to their capacity for parallel processing, real-time data handling and customization. They are also crucial for high-performance signal processing and data-intensive applications due to their parallel processing capabilities, allowing them to handle vast amounts of data at remarkable speeds. Additionally, FPGAs low latency ensures swift decision-making, which is vital in scenarios where millisecond responses are vital.
- Radiation Hardening and Reliability
- High-Speed Signal Processing and Data Handling
- Power and Thermal Efficiency in Extreme Environments
- Enhanced Security Features
- Size, Weight and Power Optimization
- Integration with AI/ML for Enhanced Capabilities
Microcontrollers
MCUs perform complex tasks with high reliability and efficiency, making them vital to aerospace technology. These aerospace components are used in control systems, managing everything from flight control surfaces to engine performance. MCUs also handle real-time data processing from various sensors and instruments, which is essential for navigation, communication, and monitoring systems.
MCUs in Aerospace Benefits
- Reliability in Extreme Conditions
- High Radiation Tolerance
- Cost Effective
- Scalability
- Enhanced Performance
- Miniaturization
Future of Aerospace Electronic Components
As the aerospace industry advances, aerospace electronic components will continue to become smaller, faster and lighter, driving innovation. These miniaturized components, essential for navigation, radar, guidance, and communication systems, will keep improving, enhancing the efficiency and performance of aerospace technologies.
Additionally, aerospace components will continue to advance in their resilience to withstand extreme conditions. Emerging Radiation Hardened FPGAs are designed to withstand extreme space conditions, including high levels of radiation. These FPGAs offer higher logic density and lower power consumption, enabling more complex in-orbit processing and flexibility for space computing programs.
Challenges
Most aerospace components have very long life cycles, usually spanning decades, meaning that many of these components will become obsolete. Because of this, companies face several challenges when sourcing these obsolete components.
One issue is the lack of proper documentation from independent distributors, who often fail to provide a certificate of compliance to verify that the components meet safety regulations and performance standards. Additionally, these distributors may lack traceability, making monitoring the components’ journey throughout their life cycle difficult. Another significant challenge is sourcing these components while adhering to strict regulatory compliances, a necessity given the mission-critical nature of the aerospace industry.
Importance of Quality and Standards
Aerospace components must meet rigorous quality standards to ensure reliability, safety, and performance in aerospace applications. These standards address design, manufacturing, testing, and quality control aspects.
At Microchip USA, we ensure that all of our components are of the highest quality and meet rigorous industry standards. Our extensive industry certifications and association memberships demonstrate our commitment to quality. Additionally, we use third-party testing to further validate the reliability and excellence of our components.
Whether you are looking for aerospace electronic components or other obsolete parts, Microchip USA is your trusted partner, dedicated to providing the highest quality and reliability at the most competitive prices.
Prepare for takeoff and contact us today!
