MANASSAS, Va., 2 Feb. 2012. Northrop Grumman Corp. (NYSE:NOC) in Manassas, Va., won a $37 million contract to produce the Consolidated Afloat Networks and Enterprise Services (CANES) system for the U.S. Navy. Northrop Grumman’s official Facebook page reveals: “We were awarded $37M by the U.S. Navy to produce CANES. If all options are exercised, the award [would] have a value of $638M. CANES will consolidate and modernize shipboard network systems to improve operational effectiveness and affordability across the fleet.”

AMBLER, Pa. 2 Feb. 2012. MEN Micro Inc. in Ambler, Pa., is introducing the semi-custom MM2 small computer-on-module (COM) with an application-specific carrier board and upgraded processor for use in industrial, harsh, mobile, and mission-critical environments in applications such as avionics, railway, agricultural and construction machines, medical engineering, and industrial automation.

BANNOCKBURN, Ill., 2 Feb. 2012. Year-over combined orders for rigid printed circuit boards and flexible circuits manufactured in North America dropped for the 12th consecutive month in December, say analysts at IPC, the Association Connecting Electronics Industries in Bannockburn, Ill. Orders of U.S. and Canadian circuit boards and flexible circuits in December decreased 2.8 percent from the same month one year ago. Compared to the previous month, however, combined industry orders of North American circuit boards and flexible circuits in December were up by 8.7 percent, IPC analysts say.

HANSCOM AFB, Mass., 1 Feb. 2012. Radar experts at the U.S. Air Force Electronic Systems Center (ESC) at Hanscom Air Force Base, Mass., are reaching out to industry in the beginning of what may become a long-term project to modernize and upgrade three ageing ground-based ballistic missile warning radar systems -- PAVE PAWS, which is short for Phased Array Warning System; the Ballistic Missile Early Warning System (BMEWS); and the Perimeter Acquisition Radar Attack Characterization System (PARCS).

WASHINGTON, D.C., Feb. 1, 2012. Lockheed Martin [NYSE: LMT] and Raytheon Company [NYSE: RTN] are teaming to compete for a U.S. Navy contract that will upgrade the fleet’s capability to electronically attack anti-ship missiles.

SANTA BARBARA, Calif., 1 Feb. 2012. Green Hills Software in Santa Barbara, Calif., is introducing the end-to-end ISS Security Solutions software engineering tools suite for the company's Integrity real-time operating system (RTOS). ISS Security Solutions consists of Suite B-Compliant Security Protocol Toolkits and Device Lifecycle Management (DLM) system.

SAN JOSE, Calif., 29 Jan. 2012. Military avionics designers at the Lockheed Martin Corp. Mission Systems and Sensors Division (MS2) segment in Owego, N.Y., needed a real-time operating system and software-engineering tools for the United Kingdom Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) radar surveillance aircraft. They found their solution from LynuxWorks Inc. in San Jose, Calif.

MANASSAS, Va., 29 Jan. 2012. Officials of rad-hard electronics specialist BAE Systems Electronic Solutions in Manassas, Va., has received QML-V approval and qualification from the U.S. Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) Land and Maritime division in Columbus, Ohio, for the BAE Systems RH1020B field programmable gate array (FPGA) for military and space applications such as satellites and strategic weapon systems that require radiation-hardened integrated circuits. The standard microcircuit drawing is SMD 5962R90965.

SAN DIEGO, 27 Jan. 2012. Military electronics industry experts are optimistic for the continued health in military electronics spending for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR); command, control, computers, and intelligence (C4I), unmanned vehicles, and electronic warfare (EW) in the upcoming fiscal year 2013 budget request for the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD), which is scheduled for public release and submission to Congress on 13 Feb.

ORANGE, Calif., 27 Jan. 2012. Phoenix International Systems Inc. in Orange, Calif., is introducing the VP1- 250X serial attached SCSI (SAS)/serial ATA (SATA) based solid-state disk VPX data storage plugin blade for aerospace and defense applications that operate in harsh environments. The device has a purge input to destroy the supported media installed on the module for data security and anti-tamper capability.

ECHING, Germany, 25 Jan. 2012. Kontron in Eching, Germany, is introducing the company's power-on built-in test (PBIT) capability on Kontron VPX, OpenVPX, and VME single-board computers to improve the reliability, safety, and security of mission-critical aerospace, defense, and transportation applications. Kontron PBIT provides a modular and scalable set of uniform test routines to assess the health and configuration of boards.

CAMBRIDGE, England, 24 Jan. 2012. Cambridge Pixel Ltd. in Cambridge, England, is introducing the HPx-200e PCI Express primary radar acquisition card that connects to a wide range of military and commercial radar types, including those from Raytheon, Sperry, Furono, Kelvin Hughes, Terma, JRC, Koden, as well as to specialist military radars. The card supports several analog and digital radar inputs, in addition to trigger and azimuth (ACP/ARP and parallel data) signals. The card also provides a capability to detect missing signals to provide software alarms for loss of triggers or azimuth data. The data-acquisition board retains the signature flexibility of the HPx range.

ALAMEDA, Calif., 22 Jan. 2011. Real-time software specialist Wind River in Alameda, Calif., is introducing RTCA DO-178C safety-critical software capability to the company's VxWorks real-time operating system (RTOS) software. Wind River is adding DO-178C Level A certification evidence support VxWorks Cert Platform, for federated systems, and VxWorks 653 Platform, for ARINC 653 space and time partitioned, multi-vendor integrated modular avionics (IMA) systems.

MIDDLETON, Wis., 20 Jan. 2011. Extreme Engineering Solutions Inc. (X-ES) in Middleton, Wis., is introducing the XCalibur4401 6U CompactPCI single-board computer based on the 2nd Gen Intel Core i7 processor for military, communications, radar, image processing, and digital signal processing. The embedded computing board is available in conduction- or air-cooled versions, and uses the processor's dual- or quad-core technology operating at speeds as fast as to 2.5 GHz.

COCOA BEACH, Fla., 19 Jan. 2012. Elma Electronic Inc. in Fremont, Calif., is introducing the 3U VPX Mini air transport rack (ATR) electronic enclosure in a rugged OpenVPX platform for applications requiring much processing capability in a small size, such as unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), image processing, radar signal processing, and similar applications that require high bandwidth signal processing and data communications.

ASHBURN, Va., 18 Jan. 2012. Curtiss-Wright Controls Defense Solutions in Ashburn, Va., is introducing the RME13CC 16-slot 13U-high 6U OpenVPX electronics chassis for rugged deployed military embedded computing systems. The forced-air, conduction-cooled military embedded systems enclosure supports as many as 16-slots of 6U 1-inch pitch payload OpenVPX cards and rear transition modules. The rackmount RME13CC chassis meets stringent ANSI/VITA 65 power and cooling requirements for conduction-cooled 150-Watt 6U OpenVPX modules.

FREMONT, Calif., 18 Jan. 2012. American Portwell Technology Inc. in Fremont, Calif., is introducing the PCOM-B218VG Type VI compact size COM Express Basic embedded computing module for applications in COTS military, industrial control, portable devices, test equipment, and medical devices. The PCOM-B218VG single-board computer measures 95 by 95 millimeters, and comes with the Intel Atom processor N2000 and D2000 series, as well as the Intel NM10 Express chipset.

WILSONVILLE, Ore., 17 Jan. 2012. Mentor Graphics Corp. (NASDAQ:MENT) in Wilsonville, Ore., is introducing high-speed simulation capability for the Freescale Semiconductor QorIQ P-Series, AMP, and QorIQ Qonverge multicore embedded processors, based on a preferred, long-term partnership agreement with Freescale, Mentor officials say. The Vista product from Mentor enables Freescale users to execute a variety of virtual prototyping and port, debug, and optimize operating systems and application software.

COCOA BEACH, Fla., 17 Jan. 2012. Embedded computing experts—who have gathered to discuss industry advancements and challenges at Embedded Tech Trends 2012 held in Cocoa Beach, Fla., by VITA Technologies officials—debate myriad issues, but generally seem to agree on the much-anticipated U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) budget. “It’s a crapshoot” is the general consensus.