COLUMBUS, Ohio – U.S. military logistics experts are asking SRI International in Menlo Park Calif., to investigate the challenge of microcircuit obsolescence in military and aerospace electronics.
Officials of the U.S. Defense Logistics Agency Weapons Support office in Columbus, Ohio, announced a $73.7 million contract to SRI International last week for the Advanced Microcircuit Emulation Improvement program.
This project seeks to develop enabling technologies to recreate obsolete or no-longer-manufactured integrated circuits (ICs) with military specification (MIL-SPEC) form, fit, and function equivalence. The contract was awarded on 17 Oct. 2025, but was not officially announced until 12 Nov. 2025 because of the government shutdown.
The Advanced Microcircuit Emulation Improvement program seeks to provide a sustained and secure supply of microcircuits by reverse engineering, designing, fabricating, and testing replacements for obsolete components critical to defense systems.
Solving parts obsolescence
The project will support the Defense Logistics Agency Generalized Emulation of Microcircuits (GEM) program, which produces high-reliability microcircuits for legacy and new weapon systems to avoid costly system redesigns.
The Advanced Microcircuit Emulation Improvement program also seeks to deliver advanced emulation capabilities for digital logic, memory components, application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs), and analog devices for digital and linear/analog ICs.
In addition, the project seeks to enhance manufacturing processes and reverse engineering methods such as new additive manufacturing for obsolete ceramic and metal IC packages and improved radiation-tolerance for analog devices.
The project emphasizes logic devices, ASICs, field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs), microprocessors, memory chips, and operational amplifiers that no longer are available commercially.
Tell me more about the Generalized Emulation of Microcircuits (GEM) program ...
- The Generalized Emulation of Microcircuits (GEM) program, initiated by the Defense Logistics Agency in 1987, provides a sustainable solution to the military-grade microcircuit obsolescence problem. It designs, reverse engineers, fabricates, and produces microcircuits that are form, fit, and function (FFF) equivalent to obsolete parts originally made with technologies like RTL, DTL, TTL, and CMOS. GEM supports production, redesign, and sustainment of these parts to enable continued support for legacy and current military systems without redesign costs. It has produced tens of thousands of emulated microcircuits, significantly reducing costs and maintaining readiness for systems like the F-15 and AEGIS weapons system. GEM is managed by DLA and uses advanced BiCMOS processes and commercial CAD tools for rapid, cost-effective production.
The project seeks to validate technologies and then switch them to DLA's GEM production for volume manufacturing, and provides lifetime sustainment for fielded systems by ensuring continued access to essential parts from diminishing manufacturing sources and material shortages.
The GEM program originally sought to provide a sustainable solution to mitigate the growing military-grade microcircuit obsolescence problem. Partnering for the first decade with Sarnoff (now SRI International), GEM started out by producing parts mostly for the U.S. Air Force F-15 jet fighter.
A sister program, Advanced Microcircuit Emulation (AME), was established soon after GEM became a stand-alone production program in 1997 to provide a continuous technological innovation. GEM/AME still supports the F-15 today by supplying microcircuits for the F-15's flight control computer and other systems.
Complex microcircuits
SRI International will advance advanced microcircuit emulation technologies into the next decade by focusing on complex microcircuits, high-voltage analog devices, integration, and readiness to accommodate evolving military needs.
On this contract, SRI International will do the work in New Jersey, and should be finished by January 2031. Money will be obligated at the delivery order level as contracting actions occur.
For more information contact SRI International online at www.sri.com, or the Defense Logistics Agency Weapons Support office online at www.dla.mil/Weapons-Support.
