BAE Systems receives $16 million to develop radiation-hardened microchips for space

BAE Systems has been awarded $16 million in defense funding to develop microchips suited for space. The money will be used to demonstrate and validate its RH45 radiation-resistant 45-nanometer (nm) semiconductor technology. The space environment is extreme; without the buffer of Earth's atmosphere, the radiation-dense surroundings can destroy standard microelectronics in seconds. To prevent satellites' "brains" from melting in orbit, the U.S. government is aiming to design hardened chips. Behind this $16 million award sits a key mission: validate BAE's proprietary RH45 chip and unlock a secure domestic hardware catalog for defense builds.

As a result, this is a major win for domestic manufacturing.

The vulnerability of commercial microchips

Why silicon chips fail in orbit. Commercial microchips are fast, tiny and cheap, but they are also extremely fragile. In deep space, a single high-energy proton can flip a bit, corrupt code, or permanently burn out a processor. Numerous radiation-induced incidents have occurred in the past, and they are a leading cause of satellite anomalies and mission failures. For instance, Russia's ambitious Phobos-Grunt mission (2011), aimed at retrieving soil samples from Mars' moon Phobos, became stranded in Earth orbit shortly after launch. Several factors contributed to the failure, including heavy-ion strikes from space radiation on unhardened commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) microchips, which corrupted the computer memory and caused fatal reboots.

Today, commercial chips continue to shrink, dramatically increasing their sensitivity to minute electrical charges. As a result, space agencies and defense contractors use specialized fabrication techniques such as radiation-hardened (Rad-Hard) or silicon-on-insulator (SOI) processes to insulate the chip and dissipate unwanted charge. These techniques employ specialized insulation and design tricks that allow them to withstand cosmic shocks and keep computing. This technology is indispensable; without it, modern space missions would fail.

Bringing fabrication back home

The newly funded project relies on GlobalFoundries' manufacturing facility in Malta, New York, using 45nm SOI technology. By bringing fabrication back to U.S. soil, the company reduces dependence on complex overseas supply chains for sensitive defense hardware. To meet radiation-protection requirements, the RH45 storefront functions as an advanced digital hardware shop. Space agencies and defense contractors can select pre-tested radiation-resistant components and assemble customized application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs) tailored to their precise needs.

This gives engineers creative freedom without having to reinvent the wheel for every new satellite launch. Joe Dziezynski, product line director for space systems at BAE Systems, said: "When supporting space missions, design flexibility is critical. Our RH45 ASIC library is a unique and trusted capability that enables our customers to target specific functions while meeting radiation-resistance requirements."

These high-performance microchips power a wide range of space operations. Deep-space planetary probes rely on them to perform complex autonomous navigation and real-time sensor processing, billions of miles from ground control. National-security assets use radiation-resistant architectures to protect critical defense payloads, maintaining continuous surveillance, threat detection and encrypted military communications. Meanwhile, commercial orbital satellites integrate these components to maximize uptime for weather-tracking networks and global satellite communications. The chips are already finding their way into hardware production. BAE is embedding RH45 technology directly into its next-generation Endura single-board computer, creating a high-speed, low-power processing unit designed specifically for orbit.

Final assembly, packaging and testing will take place at BAE's space systems facility in Manassas, Virginia, which is accredited as a Category 1A trusted source for microelectronics.