By Bernd Lienhard, CEO, VORAGO Technologies
When U.S. Air Force Chief of Staff General David Allvin emphasized the need to blend next-generation aircraft, autonomous systems, and resilient command and control in the Fiscal Year 2026 budget request, he reinforced an important message: autonomy is no longer just a technology goal. It’s now critical to mission readiness and national defense.
As these systems advance technologically and scale across the force, their reliability can’t be an afterthought. Instead, it must evolve with the mission. And that evolution must start now. Mission success will depend on whether these autonomous platforms can continue to perform under pressure in environments where failure isn’t an option.
A Growing Gap Between Defense and Silicon Trends
There’s a widening gap between what defense programs will demand and where the semiconductor industry is headed. Commercial chipmakers continue to pursue smaller geometries to maximize speed and power efficiency. Chips built at 5 nanometers are already common, and the race toward 3 nanometers and below is accelerating. But smaller doesn’t always mean more resilient.
As circuits shrink, they become more vulnerable to radiation-induced faults. Space has always been a known radiation threat, but these failures aren’t limited to orbit. They can happen right here on Earth.
Microelectronics are constantly exposed to cosmic rays, solar storms, and low-level radiation from surrounding materials. Over time, these effects can corrupt data, scramble logic, or silently impair system function. In isolation, the risks may seem minor. But for autonomous platforms operating independently in contested airspace, every vulnerability adds up.
The Air Force is already advancing next-generation capabilities through collaborative combat aircraft, smart unmanned systems, and modernized command and control initiatives. These platforms will be expected to perform without hesitation, even under duress. As they become more autonomous and interdependent, the margin for hidden failure shrinks.
Without radiation-hardened silicon, two accelerating trends could eventually collide: the commercial drive toward ultra-small chips and the defense imperative for resilient, autonomous systems. The time to bridge that gap is now, before platforms designed to offer strategic advantage become enduring points of risk.
Redundancy Has Its Limits
For decades, engineers have addressed reliability challenges by adding redundancy. They’ve stacked processors, layered backups, built in extra chips, and added physical shielding to guard against faults.
Redundancy adds size, weight, complexity, and delays. That’s at odds with the Air Force’s 2026 and beyond strategy, which calls for smaller, faster, and more agile combat systems. There’s no room to keep building in layers of backup. Not when autonomy is scaling across swarming drones, edge-deployed systems, and collaborative airframes.
To truly scale autonomous capabilities across collaborative combat aircraft, swarming drones, and contested airspace operations, resilience must be built at the silicon level from the start.
Building Resilience Into the Chip
Radiation-hardened silicon offers a smarter, more sustainable path forward. When engineers design resilience into the chip from the beginning, they can simplify systems, accelerate development, and build field platforms to withstand real-world challenges.
This is no longer just about protecting satellites or space-based systems. It is about enabling autonomous systems to complete complex missions in unpredictable environments here on Earth.
Programs like the Air Force’s Advanced Battle Management System (ABMS) and the Joint All-Domain Command and Control (JADC2) initiative require real-time, cross-platform coordination. These systems must perform reliably under any condition. There can be no hidden failure points, because every fault increases operational risk. Performance must remain consistent, both now and as these systems scale.
Enabling Resilience at the Silicon Level
Radiation resilience has traditionally come with tradeoffs. Specialized chips often require custom foundries, complex requalification cycles, and extended development timelines, which can slow down defense programs.
But silicon-level resilience doesn’t have to be out of reach.
VORAGO’s HARDSIL® technology enables the construction of radiation-hardened chips using standard commercial manufacturing processes and commercial design technicques. This helps engineers streamline their designs, avoid costly redesign cycles, and get reliable systems into the field faster.
By planning for resilience early, defense teams can design autonomous platforms that are smaller, faster, and more adaptable, without sacrificing reliability where it matters most.
Designing for the Demands of Tomorrow
The Air Force isn’t preparing for a hypothetical future. It’s designing for the battlespace of today, where autonomy, resilience, and real-time performance are no longer optional.
As commercial chip geometries continue to shrink and defense platforms advance in speed and complexity, resilience must be part of the design conversation from the outset.
Radiation-hardened silicon is not just about protecting electronics. It’s about ensuring operational success when it matters most.
