Defence suppliers are being hit harder by components going out of production too soon, writes Chris Edwards. THIRTY YEARS ago, the military-industrial complex practically owned the electronics component business. Big contracts for weapons programmes helped fund many of the top names in semiconductors, including Intel. Even at the end of the 1980s, Intel was still designing processors, such as the i960, that were aimed squarely at military users. But, ten years prior to that, the personal computer had begun to change the world: more and more of the market for electronics shifted to the fickle consumer sector. Once the consumer market dominated the business - according to the Semiconductor Industry Association PCs and cellphones now absorb 60 per cent of the world's chips - interest from the big suppliers slipped away.
展开▼
