Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: It'll be a lot deeper in the weeds as it relates to, you know, different types of orbits, for example, that would induce different type of radiation effects and the such. And all of that is encompassed in understanding kind of the mission requirements associated with what you're exposing your electronic components to and how you tailor the rad hard environment that you want to test within or model within to ensure that it gives you a good representation of what it may look like if it's fielded.
[00:00:33] Speaker B: Well. Hi, Dan, welcome to the podcast. So glad to have you. I really appreciate you taking the time and can't wait to learn more about you and your organization.
[00:00:42] Speaker A: Yeah, thanks for having me on here. Looking forward to it.
[00:00:45] Speaker B: All right, could you start by telling us a little bit about yourself and maybe some of your passions?
[00:00:50] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. So I went to school at Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo.
My undergraduates in electrical engineering, master's in material science engineering, and a minor in physics.
And I kind of fell backwards into this.
Wasn't really expecting to make that kind of the core focus of where my career was going to go, but ended up meeting a really awesome professor, a gentleman by the name of Dr. Richard Savage. And when I was taking one of his classes, I mean, just the passion and in the way that he taught the classes got me completely immersed in the subject and introduced me to something I had no idea about, which was, you know, semiconductor manufacturing and what a clean room looked like and all of these different types of pieces.
So it was an interesting kind of on ramp into the area that I've devoted my life and career towards.
It's been exciting because within that I've been able to, you know, continue doing something that I really love. Right. And that's kind of a two part piece. One is, you know, learning about all these different technologies and the such, but the, the second piece is that I've found this kind of middle ground where I can use my personality and be, you know, someone that is able to talk to people and meet new people, which is one of my biggest passions. I think that people's stories are just so neat and being able to, you know, walk a mile in someone's shoes is just understatement of how exciting it is. So I'd say that that's one of my big passions. I'm also a, a very avid reader. I love to read about a book. A week is kind of the, the pace I'm at, especially if I find a series that I love. I mean, I'll just go knee deep into it.
The health and, and exercise is another big passion.
So I'd say that always continuing to kind of challenge myself in different things, whether it be being a historically horrible runner and deciding to do a half marathon or being a, you know, just really bad reader and now add a book a week. I mean, it's something that I'd say that that would be. One of my big passions is finding ways to challenge myself internally to, you know, see what the limits are and, you know, where, where I can go as a person. And then looking back at kind of that, Jo is one of the most exciting pieces. So I'd say that that kind of captures my passions.
[00:03:29] Speaker B: Yeah, very cool. Well said. Speaking of passions, I would love to hear more about your experience working directly with the dod.
And you mentioned a little bit, but how exactly did you come to work in this industry?
[00:03:41] Speaker A: Yeah, so it was something that right after college, for my master's thesis, Raytheon helped to fund majority of the research.
So I devoted a year to them. Right after I flew out to, to Tucson, lived there for a year, worked at Raytheon Missile Systems. And it really gave me my first taste of what it was like to be a part of the defense community. I remember the first day, which was orientation, and they had some really cool patriotic music playing. There was all of these video clips of what Raytheon did as far as the missiles that they created and the such.
And out comes a two star general, uh, I mean, just as complete motivator, you know, pumping up the crowd and this new group of people saying, hey, this is the stuff that you're going to live and breathe, you know, from here on out. And it really, you know, kind of resonated with me because there's this portion of, you know, patriotism, but also the ability to do something that you can contribute back into national security. That was a really big piece.
So I spent a year there at Raytheon and then I came back home to Sacramento.
There is a small satellite office to the Pentagon known as the Defense Microelectronics Activity, and got a position there. And I'd say the story kind of, you know, carries on from there. It was a small outfit that allowed me to have kind of a small business type of environment. So it wasn't uncommon that you were the one, you know, moving equipment, but also testing on that equipment, then briefing seniors at the Pentagon. So I saw it as an opportunity to, to do what I had mentioned earlier, which is one of my passions, challenging myself in a technical area, but also being kind of A social butterfly. So going out and meeting all these different people in the community, it allows me to really see the extent of not only what the career opportunities were, but the impact that the DoD had from a technical perspective. So that was how I kind of got introduced to the. To the Defense Department.
[00:05:56] Speaker B: Yeah, sounds like you really kind of found your niche too. I imagine, or at least from my experience, there aren't a lot of personalities in the engineering or microelectronics space. A lot of those folks, which you included, are really smart. But I'm sure that's very needed to be someone that can kind of like, be that personality, that outgoing person to connect everyone.
[00:06:16] Speaker A: Yeah. And then by extension, it gave an opportunity to meet with people that were kind of on the operator side, you know, your warfighters that are out there, you know, living and breathing, you know, what it means to protect our nation, and being able to talk to them about, you know, what challenges are they faced with.
They're out there, whether it be, you know, flying fighter jets or, you know, operating within a submarine and hearing about how they're saying, look, if this piece of tech would have, you know, done X, Y and Z, that could have helped me out. And then bringing it back home and telling the engineers, hey, this is what I got. Like, these guys are saying that we could help them tomorrow. And today, with just a few tweaks of what we're doing, it really helped to bridge that gap. So that social ability and being able to network was huge.
[00:07:06] Speaker B: That totally makes sense.
So this episode is one of our tech talks, is where we kind of dive deep into a certain technology. And you really have the chance to explain to me and everyone what this technology is and what's going on. So we're going to kind of dive into rad hard technologies.
So I know very, very basic. It stands for radiation hardened technologies. That's the extent of my knowledge. Could you fill me in more on what exactly it is? Rad hard tech?
[00:07:36] Speaker A: Yeah. So as it applies to the world that I live in, which is in microelectronics, standard industry electronics don't necessarily expose their end products to any kind of adverse environment that would be within the RAD ecosystem.
So within the defense side, there are applications for that, everything from terrestrial applications to space applications. And what you're typically trying to do is expose those electronic components to different types of elements that would be exposed in those fielded activities. You know, your protons, your neutrons, your electrons, and your ions. And they come in different energy levels and exposure levels and the such. So when people talk about rad hard technologies, what they're talking about, talking about is the exposure to some of these different environmental challenges that the electronic components would see as a way to help ensure that when they qualify those electronic components, there's not this huge risk of failure of those electronic devices due to the exposure of those rad hard related elements. So that's kind of, I'd say at 100 foot level, what the, the rad hard ecosystem kind of involves now. It'll be a lot deeper in the weeds as it relates to, you know, different types of orbits, for example, that would induce different type of radiation effects and the such and all of that is encompassed in understanding kind of the mission requirements associated with what you're exposing your electronic components to and how you tailor the rad hard environment that you want to test within or model within to ensure that it gives you a good representation of what it may look look like if it's fielded.
[00:09:28] Speaker B: Okay, I see. I'm curious about what the challenges are staying. So I'm guessing with all of these there's a test that you're involved in.
[00:09:38] Speaker A: Yeah. So I mean, testing comes in a variety of shapes and sizes.
It's all dependent on those elements that I just described, your protons, your neutrons, your ions and your electrons and how those are, you know, impacting those electronic components.
I'll focus in on one of the areas that's been kind of a huge challenge from a domestic perspective, which is the radiation test infrastructure. And it's the entire infrastructure that encompasses those items that I just described with the four pieces.
Where we're heavily involved or where I've been heavily involved in is understanding the requirements associated with this and then providing a set of solutions. Back to the, to the government, primarily, either the Department of Energy or the Department of Defense, on what would be needed to create a set of testing solutions that would meet those requirements. An example of this is some of the work that's currently ongoing right now with the high energy heavy ion single event effect radiation test facility requirement.
Mouthful of of terms there. What does that actually mean?
What that actually means. This specific example helps us to evolve the radiation infrastructure to support modern electronics. So what do I mean by support modern electronics? Taking it a level below our electronic development within all of the, you know, advancements have shown that, you know, transistors continue to decrease in size and at some point they're going to decrease so much that there's not really much real estate to shrink anymore and you have to stack them Higher. Right. You start playing in the Z axis. Well, that's great from a performance perspective from electronics, but from radiation testing, the existing infrastructure doesn't allow for those ions to penetrate into the transistors. So we need to have a higher energy related testing capability that can support that z axis or the stacking of electronics to allow for the ions to penetrate in to the transistors. So that is one of a myriad of challenges our radiation infrastructure has, but one that I'm heavily involved in today that is hopefully going to help not only support our requirements for electronics, but set a foundation for capabilities in the future.
[00:12:12] Speaker B: Yeah, so you say you're heavily involved.
Do you have an initiative that's ongoing? You want to tell us about that?
[00:12:18] Speaker A: Absolutely. So right now we're in the midst of conducting an analysis of alternatives, looking at existing radiation test sites, which we would call brownfields, and then what the requirements would be for a new site, a greenfield, and looking at that with a weighted set of criteria to provide a set of recommendations. Back to the Pentagon on here is what our expert analysis says we as a nation should invest in if we are going to create this type of radiation testing capability. And the cost associated with this is one that, I mean, you would blink a number of times when you see the price tag. It's in the hundreds of millions or billions of dollars. So an analysis has to be very thorough, technically all encompassing, and ensure that there is a sustainment portion to it that ensures that whatever is built out does meet the requirements and will stand the test of time if built out.
[00:13:27] Speaker B: Okay, that makes sense. And now that we are talking kind of about that, could you explain, explain what exactly it is? Let's backtrack what exactly it is your, your organization does. What does Trusted Strategic solutions do for the dod?
[00:13:41] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. So we have a number of different items that have been extremely beneficial to the Defense Department.
One of which is, as we're kind of describing here today, are technical knowledge in a specific set of fields. So everything from secure electronics to radiation environments, both terrestrial and space applications, safeguarding of information. That has been kind of the core focus of, of what we've done. And within this, these set of solutions not only provides the technical foundation, but it also allows us to create connective tissue from the Defense Department into industry. So we've been able to help support a lot of those different types of interactions so that when industry is helping to frame some of the requirements we have, similar to the aoa, we're able to, you know, compile a set of information that is digestible on the defense side versus them having to try and scour and figure out, you know, who's who in the zoo as it relates to all the industry partners. The, the, the other piece that I'd say that we're extremely helpful with is being able to provide a set of recommendations that the Defense Department can make informed decisions on. So we've had a number of different studies that we've done for the Defense Department that have led to impacts from, on everything from legislation to policy to strategies. So we have been, you know, extremely fortunate to be able to not only have had those influences, but continue to make those influences.
The final piece that I would say is that many of us have sat on the government side and we understand, I'd say two separate pieces. The first one is the importance of reach back into the government.
So if a government organization has a challenge and they need to work with an office that they may not know, our collection of experts are able to go and help be a degree of separation from there and bring that kind of stuff back. The second thing that many government relationships have leveraged from TSS is our quick reaction support.
So having been, you know, a portion of the Pentagon for a number of years, it's not uncommon that you show up to your office and and there is a new challenge of the day and you have to answer it by the end of the day in order to meet the defense requirements that ultimately impact national security.
Us understanding that and having a quick reaction set of solutions has been extremely beneficial for many of our government clients. So that's kind of the encompassing role and responsibility that we've had in support of our government relationships.
[00:16:31] Speaker B: Okay, so what a situation might be, a government office has a critical need and they know that they have a solution that they need to get, but they feel a little in over their heads. They don't have the expertise.
[00:16:44] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, one of the typical motivators behind these quick reaction pieces is Congress. Congress will get something that comes into, you know, their offices and they'll send it out to an Assistant secretary and under secretary, whatever the appropriate, you know, connection piece is saying, I need you to address this executive order. I need you to address this vulnerability that we have just been briefed on.
And there will be a short period of time that that office has to come up with a not only comprehensive response, but something that's backed with enough technical knowledge to be able to support what they're suggesting back to Congress. That is something that happened on a regular basis while I was at DMEA and given the relationships we have now, we continue to see is the pattern that happens. So that's a good example of the way that we support things on a quick reaction type of engagement.
[00:17:42] Speaker B: So how was that initiated by the government? How did that come about?
[00:17:46] Speaker A: Yeah, so red hard testing is something that is very mission dependent.
And two organizations would have the same set of requirements or it's not common, you will have different orbital dynamics, orbital requirements, et cetera. So if a particular government office has a set of requirements, they'll put that kind of in front of our team to go ahead and look at, hey, here's what we know our mission objectives are going to be. Can you put together kind of your assessment of the requirements associated with this? And that's how it would come back here. We would understand kind of the generalization of the mission requirements and then we frame out what the appropriate kind of test methodology would be to support that particular mission.
[00:18:39] Speaker B: Okay, yeah, that totally makes sense.
So I imagine that at TSS you consult for a wide range of industry clients with various emerging technologies, various needs. What would you say is the most valuable thing you provide to your government clients?
[00:18:55] Speaker A: So I'd say there's actually two pieces that are, that are extremely important. The first one is being able to understand and talk the government lingo.
I mean it is Alphabet soup with acronyms across the board. And budget related activities are extremely confusing. So being able to make that into a very simple set of items that a industry client can go ahead and not only understand but, but make informed decisions on is one. The second one is the semiconductor industry is not necessarily set up to directly work with the Defense Department. So when they want to work with the Defense Department, there's a lot of questions of who is the right person to meet with. It's not uncommon that we'll have a client that says, well, in order for me, the CEO of X company to, you know, make any traction, I need to meet with the top person. So how do I get to the Secretary of Defense?
And we will typically inform them that the appropriate people to meet with would be at a different level. And here's why. Not only are they making decisions at the technical level, but they also hold their own budgets. And so those two types of pieces are extremely critical. It allows that industry person to cut the line and have a direct conversation with someone that can go ahead and inform them on the requirements the Defense Department has in their particular space. But also now this industry person understands all the verbiage that is being expressed to Them in the government lingo and all the three letter acronyms that go.
[00:20:33] Speaker B: With it, It's a lot of translating and a lot of connecting the right people with each other. Sounds like correct.
[00:20:41] Speaker A: And we do that in a rapid fashion. As we all know, nowadays, meetings are held virtually and being able to take a very complex topic like how the government works, dilute it down into a 10, 15 minute discussion, and then allowing the industry person to say, I understand we can go ahead and do the following. Is the value add that we bring?
[00:21:04] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. I imagine that's no easy task either. So that's impressive.
I'm curious too, kind of from your perspective, sitting in the middle of things for those like that, like me, that don't work directly in the space, what. What should we be paying attention to?
[00:21:21] Speaker A: So it's interesting with the space that I sit in, which is microelectronics, it's an enabling technology.
So it kind of helps to support the other, let's say technology of the day or technology du jour that is coming up. And we can pivot as a microelectronics industry in supporting many of these different things, everything from artificial intelligence to cyber requirements to hypersonics. All of these different pieces leverage microelectronics as a foundational technology.
So it is important to understand not only is it foundational, but the way that the Defense Department purchases their electronics is in a high mix of technologies at low volume. So the things that we have to be watching out for is how are microelectronics as a foundational technology creating an enabling function for these additional technologies to thrive in meeting mission requirements? I'd say that that would be a core key aspect of what to watch for. As we're seeing the current administration highlight things like data centers, like AI, there's a certain set of electronics that enable those which are very different than the technologies that would be needed from the Defense Department for, let's say, sustain or a variety of other DoD sets of needs. So the trends to watch out for are going to be what are the major national security objectives that are coming out of the White House and the Secretary of Defense and monitoring those aspects and seeing how microelectronics is an enabling technology can help support each of those advancements to ensure that we maintain our national security.
[00:23:13] Speaker B: Okay, yeah, that's really interesting. That's really helpful.
That's been a really great overview. I definitely understand a lot better. Now, with your insight, is there anything else that you would like to speak on before we sign off?
[00:23:26] Speaker A: Yeah. So the only other thing that I would like to speak on is that there are a lot of people that influence the integration of microelectronics. Everything from the amazing work that's going on at NST XL from a contracting perspective, to the people in the government offices helping to shape the requirements, to the industry partners providing solutions within this ecosystem. It's been exciting to see not only the amount of awareness that people have had on the impact microelectronics has to national security, and I'm looking forward to seeing how we as a community can continue to move forward there in addressing today's challenges and then the challenges that are unforeseen here in the future as we continue to evolve as a nation.
[00:24:11] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely, I agree. That's really well said. I appreciate your patience and for watering things down for me.
[00:24:18] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. So we just launched a podcast called Micro Journeys. And the idea behind this is that it helps us to leverage one of the passions that I mentioned at the. At the beginning, which is kind of observing, you know, the different steps that people have taken in their careers that have helped to influence everything from national security to technology.
So we've been very fortunate to have a number of people that have had timely interviews, like the impact our B2 bombers have had over there in the conflict between Israel and Iran, to some of the lead researchers that are looking into things like infectious diseases and how coronavirus helped us to understand certain things and what the next pandemic may look like.
So. So it's been an exciting journey within the Micro Journeys ecosystem and I'm looking forward to having many more engaging discussions like the one we're having today.
[00:25:19] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. I'll link in the show notes for anyone interested. You should definitely check it out.
And again, I appreciate your time. Thanks so much for coming on.
[00:25:28] Speaker A: Well, thanks for having me and I look forward to following up with you.
