Intel architecture for military and space applications

Sandia National Laboratories, in partnership with NASA, the National Reconnaissance Office, and the Air Force Research Laboratory, is developing a radiation-hardened emulation of the popular Pentium® architecture for use in military and space applications. This interagency program addresses the critical need for high performance computing in military and space applications. Support, affordability, and risk are being addressed by migrating commercial designs, debugged and supported by the high-volume consumer marketplace, into military and space applications. This paper provides the reader with a brief introduction to the issues involved in migrating commercial technology to military and space applications. The paper starts with the basic technological need, describes the issues involved in obtaining a licensing agreement, discusses the technical designs involved, and concludes with performance specifications and availability of chips to final users. While the treatment is brief, the reader should gain a good appreciation for why migrating complex commercial designs to the military market place is a non-trivial undertaking.