I'm in the industry now as a junior level EE, doing some work on ground launch equipment. I seriously doubt I could do anything if I had to use US-only parts. Passive components that are mil-rated and QPL aren't typically made in the US from what I've seen (except for some exotic types of capacitors, from what I can tell). A lot of ICs are made by US-based companies, but in overseas fabs. I think that's even true for the -883 compliant ones. Again, not a supply-chain expert, but it seems to me that most bread-and-butter parts aren't made in the US. And don't get me started on the counterfeit parts in the chain and all the GIDEP alerts.....
Of even more immediate concern is RoHS. Most manufacturers are dropping their non-RoHS stuff, as, what, 90% to 95% of the market's going that way? It doesn't make sense for a lot of these folks to keep two production lines going, and even if they do, the non-RoHS stuff is a lot longer lead time. Really crimps me on parts selection, as we can't use RoHS parts in critical systems due to pure tin used in the component leads (leads to whiskering).
Hermetic sealing's another problem, as lots of IC manufacturers are dropping their CerDIP and similar hermetic packaging. Not enough of a market. Some will do hermetic parts on request, but expect long lead times and the price to go way up.
Just a report from the trenches. YMMV.
“Just a report from the trenches.”
Interesting report. My how things have changed!
One of the things that I did early on in my career was a technology assessment on IC’s in the MLRS system.
Much of that system had obsolete components in it several years before the official field date. There was a lot of metal gate CMOS and RTL and DTL logic in it.
Our job was to generate a report containing recommendations for strategies to deal with rapidly changing technologies.
As soon as we issued the report it was classified, and I really don’t know what was done with our recommendations.
Obviously the MLRS turned out just fine: it was a real star in GW1.
I sure hope someone is paying very close attention to this sort of thing now. It might be rather difficult to get semiconductor fabs in China to send us spare parts if we are at war with them.
I’m certain that RoHS is really an acronym for “a real pain in the ass” in some language.
Good luck to you.