Folks discusses semiconductors’ role in national security
ECE professor Liesl Folks recently spoke on The Federal Drive with Tom Temin about a potential semiconductor shortfall that may hamper national security.
Congress passed the Chips and Science Act in 2022 to invest in America's semiconductor manufacturing sector. But Folks says the Department of Defense should do more to take advantage of the Act.
“One of the challenges for the Department of Defense is that it often has platforms that are in service for decades,” Folks said. “For example, when we build an aircraft carrier, it’s going to be out there in the ocean for a long time. But the same is true for our air fleet and many other systems. And so as the DoD needs to upgrade the electronics on these platforms, it’s facing a problem where those legacy chipsets aren’t available anymore, and it’s expensive for them to redesign all of the electronics on something as complicated as an aircraft or, heaven forbid, an aircraft carrier. So it has a really unique set of problems.”