We accept Credit Cards.

ABOUT US WORLD WIDE DISTRIBUTOR FOR NEW & OBSOLETE SEMICONDUCTORS, IC'S, RELAYS, ETC. USE OUR WORLDWIDE DATA BASE TO LOCATE OVER 14 MILLION LINE ITEMS TO FIND YOUR PARTS TODAY!>

We Buy Excess Electronics Inventory & Surplus Stock
In addition to distribution, Smith Semiconductor also buys Excess Inventory & Surplus Stock! If you have Excess Inventory from previous jobs, surplus inventory or overstock, we can turn that inventory into CASH. We'll make you an offer(Lot Bid) on your Excess Inventory, or we can set up a Consignment Contract. We can market your Excess Inventory through over 40 different global sourcing sites. With a total of over 500 Hundred Thousand searches a day, rest assure your Excess Inventory will be seen when you work with Smith Semiconductor. Our goal is to help our customers yield the highest returns on their Excess Inventory. Contact us for further information regarding your excess inventory to find out how we may provide service to meet your particular needs. (810) 895-6447

Smith Semiconductor Inc. was established to help the Defense & Aerospace Industry with obsolete and diminished manufacture sources. Smith Semiconductor is uniquely focused to providing solutions for obsolete and (DMS) shortages for Military & space level electronic component supply issues. Our goal is to provide a wealth of knowledge in today’s ever-changing electronic industry with continuous quality improvements in every aspect of our business operations

At Smith Semiconductor we understand the procurement process that is involved in Government contracts & awards. The life expectancy of Military & Aerospace electronic components on average is in production for a mere 5 years, which leads to diminished manufacture sources! A lot of contracts issued by the Department of Defense to Prime Contractors & sub contractors run into DMS issues. Most of the B.O.M's (build of material) for these projects have been engineered 10 to 15 years ago. Therefore your normal franchise distribution routes rarely have the product you require.

Over the years Smith Semiconductor has developed many relationships worldwide procuring DMS material & obsolete electronic components. Smith Semiconductor has received numerous contracts from such companies as Lockheed Martin, Honeywell, Raytheon and many others. With our vast inventory and World Wide Data exchange network we will have your projects up and running to meet your deadline!

Sincerely,

Smith Semiconductor Sales Team

Electronic Parts Obsolesence

The cost of ownership of many legacy systems-aircraft, tanks, fighting vehicles, missiles, and others - has increased dramatically in the past decade. These increases have been driven to a large extent by the cost of maintaining and upgrading system electronic architectures as they become obsolete.

These trends have occurred against a back drop of an explosive increase in both the size of the commercial electronics industry and the functionality of that industry's products. Thus, at a time of reduced defense outlays and aging weapon systems, the military also faces a proliferation of new capabilities in the hands of potential adversaries.

Obsolete Electronics & How We Got Here

To understand the degree to which the military electronics landscape has evolved to reach its current point, it's most helpful to review the situation in the 1970s. At that time, military requirements drove a most cutting-edge electronics R&D, and the military bought approximately 35% of all components. Serving the military's need for advanced electronics was good business; despite the stringent standards and specifications used in manufacturing and testing, the return on manufacturing investment was generally high.

By 1984, the military's share of the domestic semiconductor market was down to 7%. Despite the reduction in the market share, the military generally bought the most profitable chips and components, so most manufacturers serving the military market considered it a good one and stayed put.

By the late 1980s, there was significant momentum building for a chance in military purchasing and aquisition procedures. Proponents for change focused on electronics, arguing that acquisition process should be redesigned to captalize more effectively on the growth of the commercial electronics industry, which significantly changed the economic ground rules for manufactures.

By the late 1990s, the military was confronting an exponentially expanded commercial electronics base. At the same time, the traditional leaders of the military industrial base had focused on mergers that failed to shed unnecessary infrastructure, and were not able to understand the impact of commercial growth component level of manufacturers.

As the military's share of component purchases has fallen to less than 1%, the military market has become less and less attractive. The cost of new semiconductor fabrication facilities has risen into the billions, so manufacturers have increasingly focused on the growing mass-market opportunities. The low volume and stringent requirements involved in military chip manufacture have fueled the perception that serving military requirementsis unprofitable, saps corporate energy, and is contrary to desired market positioning. Thus, one semiconductor manufacturer after another is leaving the military market, in pursuit of better returns on their engineering and capital investments.

Consequences of the eroding military component infrastructure

Major weapon systems are experiencing sever obsolescense problems at a time when legacy systems ( the tanks, helicopters, aircraft, and others designed in the 70's and 80's) are being counted on to serve the military well into the 21st century. The U.S. Army has recently decided that its current fleet of tanks and fighting vehicles will need to be in the active inventory until the year 2030. The U.S. Air Force says its bomber fleets, including the venerable 40 year old B-52, will be needed until 2040.

As these systems continue to age, simple component replacement is either not possible, or not competitive in either cost or performance with the functionality routinely encountered in the commercial electronics market. To compound the problem, many of obsolesence fixes being developed rely on replacement designs developed by the government and military industrial engineers, based on what they know and what they are comfortable using. Unfortunately, the chip sets and components built into these designs are often already obsolete or fast becoming so. There are many examples of engineers designing an obsolesence fix only to find, at the point of production, that the fix is now obsolete.

For years, components manufactured to military specifications offered significant advantages to systems designers. The design and manufacture of components to military specification (Mil Spec) ensured their ability to withstand and provide reliable service in the face of the harsh enviroments experienced by many tatical weapon systems. Their life cycle, typically 10-20 years, was similar to the 20-30 year anticipated life cycle of the systems in which they were installed. Despite the high initial cost of Mil Spec components, their overall life cycle ownership cost was often lower than that of comparable commercial products, because of longer life and enhanced durablity. Therefore, it was generally in the customer's best interest to specify military components anytime the performance, reliablity, or maintenance needs of a system would benefit from their longer life cycle. It was simply necessary to ensure that the component was readily available, and not in the tail end of its own life cycle.

One of the most important stated goals of defense acquistion reform is to reduce costs by better leveraging the rapid advancements and high volume of the commercial electronics market. However, the erosion of the manufacturing base for military components has in cases actually increased the cost of electronics to the military customer. at first, this conclusion seems counter-intuitive: after all, redesigning a circuit to permit the use of state-of-the-art high volume commercial components can reduce the initial outlay for these components (compared to Mil Spec) by 60-80%. However, because component costs may only contribute a third or so of the purchase price of an electronic subsystem, any savings derived from reduced component costs are diluted significantly. A savings of 60% on every component in a given subsystem may translate into reduction of 20% or less in the final purchase price. Moreover, the move from Mil Spec to commercial electronic components carries with it several costs whose magnitude is only now becoming clear:

Increased testing costs:

1. Resonsible subcontractors must test components to ensure that they can function under military enviromental conditions. In the heyday of Mil Spec components, this responsibility fell to the manufacturer, who would conduct a single thorough enviromental qualification; once certified, the component could then be designed into and used on various platforms and subsystems across the service. In contrast, when using commercial components, the component manufacurer is no longer a partner in the process of qualification for military use. Consequently, each individual customer must pay for the development of test vectors and equipment to assess a given component's suitability for the anticipated application; the resulting upscreening or de-rating test are per-formed to the satisfaction of only the intended user. Therefore, the military services may pay many times over the testing of a commercial part incorporated by different subcontractors in different systems, even if the testing protocols are similar.

Reduced component life cycle costs:

2. New commercial components are typically designed for an anticipated life span no more than five years, and often much less. The peak availability (and lowest pricing) of a given component may last only 6-18 months, as next-generation components are developed to take its place. As a result, their use re-aggravates the obsolescense issue. The short life span of typical commercial components means that re-qualification testing will have to occur several times during the service life of a given subsystem. It also may result in the deployment of multiple configurations of a subsystem, which carry increased costs for traing and logistics.

Proprietary component life cycling costs:

3. Because many legacy weapon systems of the 70s, 80s, and 90s are based on closed architectures with proprietary interfaces and form factors, the use of newer commercial components will incur non-recurring engineering costs. these costs are typically amortized over very low production volumes, so their effest on per-unit cost is significant.

Assembly priority and schedule risk:

4. To help the production run sitiuation and reduce non-recurring costs discussed above, small companies are forming alliances with commercial circuit card assemblers. The commercial circuit card companies are funding their annual manufacturing process improvements to meet the ever-changing design requirements of their commercial business, something small and large defense contractors would find prohibitive with the very low volume runs of the military. The small defense companies are getting sub-system and circuit card design work because these jobs can be too costly for large defense companies to do in-house. But it puts the small contractors in the position of fighting to get 50 or 100 circuit card assemblies built by board manufacturer who is running 20,000 commercial boards per day. Even when thy are successful at breaking into commercial company's circuit card build queue, one slip in the assembly schedule of a board due to parts availability and the circuit card build is at the back of the queue this can easily be a 2-4 month hit to the program schedule.

For these reasons:

Obsolescence must be regarded as inevitable, and its effects must be mitigated proactively. In planning for both new weapons and legacy system maitenance, proactive processes should be established: first, to assess the current sitiuation and available alternatives; and second, to provide sound, cost effective recommendations and actions.