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Department of Defense adopts 'zero trust' approach to buying microelectronics

An F-35 taxis from the runway onto the flightline after successfully completing a sortie at Luke Air Force Base, AZ, Dec. 14, 2015. Computers aboard aircraft such as the F-35 are built with microelectronics, and the Defense Department must ensure those microelectronics are safe to use before they are installed in weapons systems. [Photo: Air Force Airman 1st Class Ridge Shan]

 

 

 

 

By C. Todd Lopez for the Department of Defense

Microelectronics are in nearly everything, including the complex weapons systems the Defense Department buys, such as the F-35 joint strike fighter, the Pentagon's director of defense research and engineering for modernization said.

"It is so ubiquitous, and because it is ... so fundamental to everything we do," said Mark J. Lewis via video conference on May 19 as part of a forum sponsored by the Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association.

Because of the importance of microelectronics, he said, the department is shifting the way it goes about buying microelectronics and ensuring they are secure to use.

"We want the Department of Defense to have access to state-of-the-art capabilities, which we do not have today," he said. That's because the department is not buying on the commercial curve, he explained.

In the mid-1990s, DOD adopted a "trusted foundry" model for procuring microelectronics, Lewis said.

"The idea [was] that in order to deliver parts that we could trust, we would enable foundries that would manufacture our microelectronics where we had control over every step of the process -- or so we thought," he said. "That model, we think, has failed."

The department isn't a large purchaser of microelectronics, Lewis said, so companies that adhered to the department's "trusted foundry" model were unable to make a business case for following it.

"As a result, they haven't been investing," he said. "The chips that we buy, the microelectronic components that we buy from those trusted foundries, are in some cases two generations behind what's available on commercial state-of-the-art."

This microchip served as part of an erasable programmable read-only memory in an early 1980s computer. [Photo: C. Todd Lopez, DOD]

 

 

Also, he said, the "trusted foundry" model does pose risk -- from the inside.

"We've seen a number of examples where the biggest threats that we face often are the insider threat. It's the people inside the fence line, behind the guards, who we think we've cleared," he said. "They're the ones that pose the biggest threats to us."

Now, he said, the department looks instead to a "zero trust" approach to purchasing microelectronics. That assumes that nothing the department buys is safe, and that everything must be validated before it can be used.

"You depend on data, you depend on validation and verification, you depend on standards that will make sure that what you have has no surprises, doesn't have back doors that are going to injure you or damage you, and doesn't act in a malicious way," he said. "We're actually extremely comfortable now -- we believe that the technologies already exist for us to be able to do that."

By using "zero trust," he said, the department will be able to gain access to the most modern technology.

"Our goal is to allow the Department of Defense to purchase on the commercial curves, from state-of-the-art," Lewis said. "That will put us on ... par with our strategic competitors."

Lewis laid out 11 department technology priorities. Those include microelectronics; autonomy; cyber; 5G communications; fully networked command and control communications; space; hypersonics; quantum science; biotechnology; artificial intelligence; and directed energy. Of those, he said, microelectronics is a top priority.

On 5G, he said, that communications technology is "an absolutely essential, high-priority monetization element for us."

"5G brings data rates, it brings low latency, it brings a volume of data that will be far greater than what we operate with today," he said. "The implications for the Department of Defense, we think, are quite profound."

The department wants for the U.S. to be setting international standards for 5G and also wants to ensure DOD's needs and requirements are driving the direction in which the technology moves, he said.

Air Force Lt. Col. Josh Linden, a C-130H Hercules navigator with the Connecticut Air National Guard's 103rd Airlift Wing, programs the flight computer before takeoff. Flight computers such as the ones in C-130H aircraft are built with microelectronics, and the Defense Department must ensure those microelectronics are safe to use before they are installed in weapons systems. [Photo: Marine Corps Staff Sgt. Hector de Jesus]

 

 

 

 

The coronavirus pandemic has highlighted the importance of biotechnology, he said. But for the department, dealing with and defeating pandemics is only part of that technology space, he added.

"We view biotechnology also as using synthetic biological processes and using biotechnology to enable and enhance new manufacturing capabilities," he said.

He cited microorganisms that can produce materials with properties similar to concrete as an example.

Some of the work from organizations such as the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) can actually grow a runway, Lewis said. "You can sprinkle these organisms and have them produce runway material, instead of the old fashioned way," he explained. Other microorganisms can concentrate rare earth metals, providing a new supply chain for those materials, Lewis said.

Published June 2020

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