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In the defense industry, change has been a key word for the last several years. Evidence of it can be found everywhere, from new international alliances to the way in which defense systems are manufactured and procured.
One such change is the adoption of the Qualified Manufacturer's List (QML) by the Department of Defense (DoD) and the military semiconductor industry. QML is an IC qualification method for the stringent quality demands required by military systems. And while military ICs have always had stringent qualification programs, QML is revolutionary rather than evolutionary.
QML's appeal lies in the fact that it is a qualification process for an entire fabrication and assembly line. Once the fab and assembly process has been qualified by the DoD, then every IC produced is qualified as well. In the past, each and every device lot had to be qualified, despite years of data indicating that parts of the process were unnecessary.
For military customers, QML means the same high reliability parts they are accustomed to with a manufacturing and qualification process that emulates the best practices found in the commercial IC world. However, QML also offers commercial customers something as well. TI Military Products marketing manager Tom Hughes explains.
"The benefits for military and commercial customers are many. For military customers, QML takes the best practices found in the commercial IC world and joins them with the best practices found in the military IC world," said Hughes. "Since QML qualifies an entire manufacturing and assembly process, then commercial customers also have the satisfaction of knowing that TI fabs have met the most stringent qualification requirements in existence."
Some of the QML benefits considered "Best Commercial Practices" by the DoD include catalog parts, an easily recognized part number, the option of ceramic or plastic packaging and distributor-stocked parts. Some of QML's best practices found in the military world include configuration control, device traceability, standardized supplier certification and obsolescence control.
For the manufacturer, and ultimately the consumer, the most important benefit of QML is that it allows the elimination of non-value added steps. The process allows the advantage of analyzing data gathered from the manufacturing and testing process. When the manufacturer has sufficient statistical data to prove a particular process step demonstrates no addition of value to the device, it can be deleted.
Until March of this year, the only fabs that could be approved for QML were those located in the United States or NATO countries. This meant devices built using die from fabs outside the United States and NATO countries could not be listed as QML devices.
On March 31, however, Walter B. Bergmann, chairman of the Defense Standards Improvement Council (DSIC), named QML a performance-based specification (MIL-PRF-38535) that would allow die built off-shore to be QML qualified. As allowed in MIL-PRF-38535, Texas Instruments can now self-certify fabs outside the United States and NATO countries as well as begin process flow modifications that eliminate non-value-added steps from within those flows.
Today, Texas Instruments Military Products Division, with more than 1,700 QML device types, is the largest supplier of QML products. Please contact your authorized TI distributor or your TI factory sales representative to find out more about QML and TI's entire range of military ICs.
July - August 1995, vol. 12, no. 5