EEE Space Component Supply Chain Challenges in Europe

October 2014

Mikko Nikulainen

ESA Head of the Components Technology and Space Materials Division

2

European Landscape for Space EEE-components

All European Space Agency programmes are dependent on the continuous access to key EEE technologies and manufacturing processes.

A major risk is the increasing obsolescence from within the supply chain.• Each disruption of the supply chain leads to high requalification

costs and subsequent delays to ESA space programme schedules.

The two main drivers of obsolescence issues in Europe today are still:

• Legal; “environmental driven legislation” (REACH, RoHS) is reducing dramatically the availability of critical substances in Europe. – GaAs , InP, Alodine 1200, Hydrazine, are currently in the pipeline for regulated usage in Europe or

total withdrawal from the European Union market.

• Industrial; continuous pressure for cost reductions in the terrestrial market leads to continuous restructuring of the industrial supply chain.

– Space is a niche “low volume” market with a high exposure to changing industrial landscape and has little influence.

Active measures have been put in place in 2004 via European Component Initiative (ECI) to secure the availability of the European EEE-component supply chain.

Sumitomo visit 2012

“Industrial trend towards product based solutions”– ESA suppliers are increasingly relying on recurring products and platforms.

– Recurring products and platforms save on the design and manufacturing costs, they also expose European space projects widely to the volatility of the supply chain.

– Evolution of the terrestrial industry is decoupled from the interest of the space industry creating potential obsolescence issues in the space sector.

“Evolution in the regulatory environment is creating serious obsolescence issues” – New European legislation (REACH/RoHS) is increasingly limiting the usable portfolio of materials and

processes for space.– Impacting the competitiveness of the European Space industry.

– Legislation is addressing substances of high strategic importance for space which cannot be expected to be solved by the terrestrial industry.

– Medium term: re-qualify processes,– Long term: accelerate alternative technology development.

“Technology gap still exists”– With strategic activities like GaN and DSM technology development the gap can be reduced.

– In an environment where the cost of access to technology is going up, as mission requirements and

technology integration level is increasing, there is a need to secure independent access to critical

“building blocks”.

– Need both funding and end-user commitment on key enabling technologies.

Industrial Trends Driving the Challenges

The ESA objective is to reduce project risks and costs by:

– Generating a pool of qualified technology “building blocks”;

– by aggregating end user requirements and investing on advance

development and qualification of critical technologies.

– Securing priority access and lower cost to utilise critical technologies;

– by performing consolidated advance procurement for technologies

under development.

– Mitigating medium and long term obsolescence issues;

– by identifying and accelerating the technology development of

potentially obsolete technologies.

– Mitigating the risk of short term supply chain interruptions;

– by identifying and investing on critical suppliers within the supply

chain.

ESA EEE Objectives 2014-2020

The European Components Initiative…..

1. Aims at maintaining and enhancing a European industrial base for critical

technologies needed by Europe’s space missions

2. Exists to reduce the dependence of Europe’s space sector on non European

component suppliers, by focusing on one of the building bocks of space

missions – Electrical, Electronic and Electromechanical (EEE) components.

3. Increases the availability of European EEE components used in European space

missions by developing capabilities to manufacture and qualify critical

technologies within Europe.

4. ECI has in the last years managed to

start turning Europe from a net importer of

components slowly into an exporter.

– but we still have a long way to go .

European Components Initiative -Non Dependence

Aeroflex: LVDS DriverIVF: Lead Free PCB

ATMEL: Column attach, Large FPGA, EEPROM, Flip chip Cobham (CTM): Coaxial isolators (x2)OMMIC: Wide band AmplifierHCM: Assembly, packagingTAS (F): Mixed RF boards, WBA, VCO, Lead free PCB, HT cables, Flip chipASTRIUM: Lead free PCB, Flip ChipEurofarad: HV film capacitorsTRAD: Rad assessmentRakon: Crystal oscillatorE2V: Flip Chip, DAC, EEPROMSTm”: 65 Nm

AXON Kabel: High Temp cablesIDA: IP cores (CCSDS)UMS: VCOIHP: 0.13 SiGe BiCMOSRood Technology: PLLInfineon: MOSFETS

Eggo: Test House (HT cables)

Optoi: PhototransistorFBK: PhototransistorTAS (I): Mixed RF boards

Arquimea: LVDS DriverTuV Alter: Various Studies

IMEC: LVDS DriverOn-Semi: HAS2 Wafer

IST: Platinum Sensor

IQE: Gan EpitaxyPeregrine: PLLRakon : Xoscillator

ECI 3…“Providing access to strategic components and technologies”

Picosun :ALD conformal coatings

ECI Phase 3“Providing access to strategic components and technologies”

ALTER(ES) Selection, ESCC Eval and Qual

of Capacitor and Resistors w ith extended

operating temperature range for high pow er

applications

TESAT/ Infineon (DE) ESCC Evaluation &

Qualif ication of 150V Pow er-MOSFET SMD

Package

Arquimea (ES) European LVDS driver

Development and ECSS Evaluation and

Qualif ication - Phase 2 Test Vehicle

Constalex (GR) Space validation of Rad-

Hard Erbium Optical Fibre Amplif ier at 1.55

µm

MPB (CA) Space validation of Rad-Hard

Erbium Optical Fibre Amplifier at 1.55 µm

RUAG (CH) CAPS (Contactless Angular

Position Sensor) evaluation

OPTOI (IT) ESCC Evaluation of 8 channel

phototransistor for optical encoder w ith

Hermetic glass lid

ATMEL (FR) ESCC Evaluation of the

Redesigned 4Mb EEPROM Themis

Tyndall (IRE) Reliability assessment/

evaluation/ characterization of commercial

EEE parts/ JAXA qualif ied parts

Seibersdorf (AT) Radiation characterization

of COTS for space applications

UMS (DE) GREAT2 phase 3: ( 2013 )ESCC

Process Evaluation

Gooch& Housego (UK) Space validation,

ESCC of DFB Laser Module at 1.55 µm

HTA Consortium : MEMS Reliability

assessment ( VTT, Fraunhofer, CSEM,

CEA)

ECI Phase 4: Status So Far“Strengthening the supply chain”

Reynolds (UK) ESCC Evaluation/

Qualification of HV cable assembly

Thermacore (UK) Advanced Cooling

Technologies compatible with Novel Flip

Chip and High Pin count technologies

OMMIC (FR) Space evaluation of ultra

low noise processes for very high

frequency applications

TESAT (DE) Procurement, distribution

and technical support to Industry of

VASP

IDA (DE) IP cores: Full implementation

of the CFDP protocol in the IP-Core.

Alter (ES) Efficiency of the ECSS

Process

E2V (FR) Study for a Non-hermetic

solution for Flip-Chip Products

RUAG (SE) High density PCB

compatible with novel Flip Chip and High

Pin Count Technologies

Identified Key Technologies for ESA(EEE 2020 Roadmap)

• Space qualified supply chain for 65nm Deep SubMicron ASIC technology,

ADC/DAC, HSSL, Flip-chip, DDR memories, high pin count packaging

• Rad hard Large re-programmable European FPGA.

• European space qualified Gallium Nitride (GaN) supply chain for POWER

and RF.

• Space qualification of Non Hermetic packaged devices (e.g. Class Y)

• Space qualification of European Mixed Signal ASIC technology.

• Extended range of advanced VLSI products:

• DC-DC Converters, MOSFETS, Pulse Width Modulators, Line drivers

etc…

• Next Generation general purpose Micro-Processor (NGMP)

• European high performance CMOS image sensor technology supply chain.

• Space qualified European RF MEMS process.

• Qualification of non-European foundry processes (Far-East foundries)

• Process re-qualification due to REACH/RoHs induced changes

• Evaluation of Commercial EEE Components for Space applications.

8

Initial Investment

Timeline from R&D to Commercialization

9

Return on Investment

R&D

Phase

Extended

Development/

contingencies

Evaluation /

QualificationProduct in Service

Typ 2-3 years Up to 2-3 years Typ 1-2 y Typ 5 -20 years

Typically 10 years !

European Components Initiative

TRL 8 (System test , launch and operation)

TRL 2- TRL3/4 (Technology developed )

TRL 4- TRL6 (Technology evaluated and qualified)

TRP, GSTP, FP7, ARTES

Examples of qualified products in service: AVX Type 1 capacitors since 1983, Infineon CFY66/67 GaAs HEMT since 1994….

Space Supply Chain

Value Added Chain, Example Microcircuits

Design RulesLibrary ElementsDesign KitASSP Expertise Simulation Files

Test Rules

Simulation FilesBurn-in ConditionsTest Rules

WLA (Wafer Level Acceptance)

Assembly RulesPackage Drawing

BusinessFeedback

Loop

10

- In order to understand the evolution of the business feedback loop,ESA contracted a survey in 2014 with ALTER Technology (Spain).

- The survey was implemented by questionnaires to 16 space equipment suppliers.

Recent survey of Equipment Providers - Selection Criteria

Question 1

ESA UNCLASSIFIED – For Official Use

• As expected, the export restriction constrains, cost and availability are the main driversfor the decision at the time of selecting the EEE parts in a design.

• It is not surprising that around 70% of the users consider that it is not especially important whether the part is coming from a European source or outside of Europe.

• Performance and heritage are very important for the parts selection.

In your design/projects, the

criteria for selection of EEE

parts is based upon

Most important

criteria Important Not important

Not relevant at

all

Free of Export restrictions 8 7 1

Cost 9 5 2

Availability (lead time) 9 4 2

European Source 2 3 7 4

Non-european Source 5 7 4

Performance 9 7

Accessibility to the supplier 3 10 3

Previously used in your designs 7 7 2

Recent survey of Equipment Providers - Availability and lead times

Question 2

ESA UNCLASSIFIED – For Official Use

additional points addressed by one major end-user: “…….It is important to ensure that the introduction of new ESCC components bringstechnical, performance and/or economic advantages compare to other components…”.

In terms of availability/Lead

time, what would you consider

to incresae the utilisation of

european EEE parts in your

designs

Most important

criteria Important Not important

Not relevant at

all

Establishment of a qualified list

of distributors 4 6 6

Access to stock from previous

programs 4 9 2

Common Database to find

stocks 6 8 1

Increase the manufacturing

capabilities of European

manufacturers 6 8 2

Recent survey of Equipment Providers - Performance and Price

Question 3

ESA UNCLASSIFIED – For Official Use

As expected, decreasing the unit price and non recurrent charges are considered the main factors to increase the utilization of European EEE-parts

In terms of technology &Costs,

what would increase the

Utilization of European EEE

parts in your designs

Most important

criteria Important Not important

Not relevant at

all

To decrease manufacturing

Unit Price 8 6 2

To decrease manufacturing

additional cost (No-recurrent

charges) 7 6 3

To have ESCC parts with

better/higher performance 5 10 1

To have a Cross-Reference

between ESCC and Non ESCC

parts 2 12 1

To have more radiation

information for ESCC parts 6 8 1

Better overview/promotion of

existing ESCC parts 4 8 4

Recent survey of Equipment Providers -Procurement Qualification Level

Question 4

ESA UNCLASSIFIED – For Official Use

In general, an increase of ESCC QPL types and slight increase for MIL QPL types is expected in the coming years by most users.

It is important to follow the mid term evolution of the use of commercial types, since a third of the users expect an increase in the utilization of COTS in the coming years.

In the coming 5 years, what are

the perspectives of

procurement for the following

types?

Hig

h

Incre

ase

Incre

ase

Ste

ady

Decre

ase

Hig

h

Decre

ase

ESCC QPL/QML types 2 9 4 1

ESCC not EQPL types 1 4 9 2

US QPL/QML types 5 7 4

US not QPL/QML types 4 9 3

JAXA qualified types 4 10 1 1

CECC types1 13 2 1

Commercial types 1 5 8 1 1

• Unit price and non-recurrent cost, independent of the specification system, are the main

drivers for the parts selection. Furthermore, having the qualification for the assembly

process is also confirmed as key factor for the selection of EEE-parts.

• The export constraints for some part types plays an important role for the consideration of

European solutions (but cost and lead time are still the main drivers).

• The unpredictable dynamics of the export licenses leads to a residual risk in the

supply chain.

• For new developments, early promotion is essential for the parts to be successfully

introduced to the market.

• Significant mid-term growth of the percentage of commercial parts is expected. The

controlled use of COTS needs to addressed in the evolution of the specification systems and

standards.

• The harmonization and mutual recognition of the ESCC and JAXA qualification systems is

leading to increased interest and utilization of JAXA qualified components in European

missions.

ESA UNCLASSIFIED – For Official Use

1. Some Early Conclusions from the

Survey