John McHale, Editorial Director, OpenSystems Media
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Dean Holman named as President/Executive Director of VITA
FOUNTAIN HILLS, Ariz. VITA, the trade association for standard computing architectures serving critical embedded-systems industries, announced that Dean Holman is VITA's President and Executive Director, effective February 1, 2022. Jerry Gipper, the previous Executive Director, will continue as VITA’s Marketing Director.
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Unmanned aircraft leverage PC/104, COM Express, and other small form factors
Unmanned aircraft systems (UASs) continue to shrink in size, as do their payloads, requiring system designers to leverage small-form-factor, embedded-computing standards like PC/104, COM Express, and others.
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DNA marking of ICs still causing discontent
The Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) caused quite a stir among authorized integrated circuit (IC) suppliers and original component manufacturers (OCMs) in 2013 when - in an effort to mitigate counterfeits - it essentially required them to mark their Federal Supply Class (FSC) 5962 IC parts with plant deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) to tag them as authentic. I wrote about the controversy in this space in our December issue with a column titled: "DNA marking for counterfeit parts: problem solver or money pit," that had comments from the DLA and from authorized suppliers affected by the mandate.