Functional Area Problems. Opportunities, and Constraints 33 



Ironies, particularly microelectronics. Rapid advances in 

 that field have made possible the development of highly 

 sophisticated sensors, some military applications of 

 which are discussed later in this section.' Sensors based 

 on microelectronic circuitry have also led to the develop- 

 ment of "smart" integrated conventional systems, such as 

 the Assault Breaker and Tank Breaker systems described 

 in the Source Volumes (NS). 



Microelectronics technology also underlies the rapidly 

 advancing and converging fields of computers and com- 

 munications; some military applications will be described 

 below. Because sophisticated electronic circuitry under- 

 lies the entire U.S. defense mission, new demands are 

 being placed on military personnel. Research in be- 

 havioral science aimed at understanding the complex in- 

 terface between human beings and electronics systems is 

 highlighted at the end of the section. 



Given the central ity of microelectronics to the defense 

 mission, the Department of Defense is focusing consid- 

 erable attention on stimulating research and development 

 at the frontiers of the field. The Very High Speed Inte- 

 grated Circuits (VHSIC) Program, started during fiscal 

 year 1980, is a 6-year, triservice/industry/university de- 

 velopment program aimed at accelerating the advance- 

 ment of microcircuit technology to firmly reestablish U.S. 

 leadership in the field. The program also aims to ensure 

 the continued industrial capability to provide the elec- 

 tronics required in the next generation of computers, 

 missiles, radars, and intelligence processing centers. For 

 the semiconductor industry, VHSIC is a substantial pro- 

 gram, increasing the level of Department of Defense R&D 

 support in integrated circuit technology to four times what 

 it has been in recent years. The VHSIC program is de- 

 signed to provide a substantial step forward in integrated 

 circuit performance and production capabilities. A ten- 

 fold reduction in size, weight, power consumption, and 

 failure rate, with accompanying savings in both initial and 

 life-cycle costs of military computer processing systems 

 compared with existing very large scale integrated circuit 

 technology, is envisioned. New or improved computer 

 chip architecture will be developed to permit chip design 

 at an affordable cost, with minimum customization to 

 reduce supply and logistic costs. 



The Department of Defense has also recently initiated a 

 very long range effort in Ultrasmall Electronics Research 

 (USER) intended to advance electronics technology sub- 

 stantially beyond even the goals of the VHSIC program. 

 With the advent of high-resolution electron. X-ray, mo- 

 lecular, and ion-beam lithographic techniques, an era of 

 ultrasmall devices can be envisioned in which individual 

 feature size might well be fabricated on the molecular 

 scale of dimensions (i.e., 10-20 nanometers). In such 

 devices, temporal and spatial scales would become so 

 short and the electric fields so large that the physical 

 concepts used in analysis of present day semiclassical 



device physics would be inappropriate and, indeed, might 

 be misleading. Moreover, the new physical properties 

 available could lead to radically new electronic device 

 structures in that the individual device might assume a 

 variety of functions that depend upon the influence of 

 neighboring devices. 



Thus, USER aims at revolutionary changes 10 to 20 

 years in the future that will depend upon entirely new 

 concepts and materials. It will deal mainly with the phys- 

 ics, chemistry, metallurgy, and transport of charge in 

 highly constrained geometrical structures that may be 

 used in future generations of highly complex integrated 

 circuits. USER has been called one of the last remaining 

 frontiers of solid-state electronics, where the new funda- 

 mental unit is an aggregate or array of molecules or atoms. 

 While this research program has highly speculative as- 

 pects, the potential payoff is very high in terms of U.S. 

 preeminence in both military and civilian applications of 

 electronics in the decades ahead. 



ELECTRONIC SYSTEMS 



COMPUTER SOFTWARE 



Because advances in software technology have not kept 

 pace with advances in computer hardware technology, the 

 Department of Defense has recently begun a concerted 

 attack on software problems, with special emphasis on a 

 few high-payoff projects. The urgency of the software 

 problem derives chiefly from the following factors; 



(1) Software continues to be an increasingly important 

 and expensive component of military systems, with 

 estimates of Department of Defense computer soft- 

 ware costs now running as high as $5 billion per year; 



(2) Advances in computer hardware technology are 

 rapidly altering computer system characteristics and 

 expanding expectations for military systems; 



(3) The Department of Defense has specialized software 

 needs that are not shared with most commercial and 

 industrial applications of computers; and 



(4) The approaching completion of the Ada common 

 programming language standardization effort 

 provides an opportunity for coordinated development 

 of generic software, with significantly reduced du- 

 plication of Department of Defense software support 

 environments. 



The software technology program has two major parts. 

 The first is aimed at the short-term problems of realizing 

 the potential benefits offered by the Ada common lan- 

 guage effort. The second will be a longer term effort to 

 greatly improve the effectiveness of automated software 

 technology for military systems requirements and to com- 

 plement the computer hardware of the mid-1980s. 



