Software-Defined Warfare Meets the Hardware Supply Crunch

Today’s software-defined military systems need incredibly powerful hardware, and its intensifying competition for components and materials.

Establishing the technological upper hand has always taken priority for military forces. In today’s data-driven, AI-powered world, superiority comes from faster decision-making, seamless interoperability between systems, and real-time adaptability.

This is software-defined warfare, and the shift is happening after civilian applications have shown that software-defined technologies such as cellular radio-access equipment (SDR) can deliver agile architectures that respond quickly to new specifications and changing user demands through over-the-air updates. Indeed, as defense departments have transitioned their practices and systems to this more flexible approach, SDR has been described as the digital backbone of the battlespace. It provides the key to multi-domain integration and enables rapid, seamless connections between national systems of allied forces.

Moreover, SDR is a critical technical enabler of signals intelligence, comprising communications intelligence (COMINT) and electronic intelligence (ELINT), which analyses transmissions from non-allies. While COMINT is rooted in codebreaking to intercept content like speech, text and data, ELINT focuses on non‑communication emissions like pulse patterns and RF power levels to infer equipment capabilities, modes and intent. Knowing what types of systems are present and how they operate gives strategists the basic information needed to counter them.

The enormous flexibility and real-time adaptability of SDR are central to making software-defined warfare work, enabling transmission and reception across a wide range of frequencies and quick responses to new and previously unseen sources entering the RF landscape.

As military SDR moves beyond its origins in classical radio technology, it’s becoming software‑defined sensor‑compute platforms that can detect, digitize, classify and combine data from multiple sources. It can adapt in real time as adversaries change their tactics and technology.

Hence, software-defined warfare has come to describe a multi-domain and multi-sensor environment, and there are clearly exciting opportunities for those designing and building the next generations of equipment. But software can only manipulate what the hardware can pick up and it’s extremely challenging to create a platform that is broadband and powerful enough to provide a suitable generic environment for the software to do its magic. This is intensifying demands to massively increase the hardware’s front-end RF bandwidth while ensuring linearity. Designers are also under pressure to increase embedded computing power for tasks like real‑time waveform recognition and create ever-faster system interconnects.

The coming generations of military SDR will have far greater capabilities than any previous civilian systems, but achieving the required performance calls for high-end components: ultra-wideband analog front ends, GPU accelerators, high‑bandwidth and high-density memory, high-capacity MLCCs and high-speed optoelectronics. Advanced resins, e-glass and copper foils are also needed for high-density packaging, interposers for chiplets and low-loss, high-speed PCB substrates. If this sounds familiar, these are the items already in high demand for hyperscale data-center expansion and, in many cases, strictly available on allocation. The AI‑accelerated sensor platforms needed to power software-defined warfare are thus running straight into the same bottlenecks currently facing the AI‑server ecosystem.

With the weight of government behind them, militaries can push hard for access to the resources they need. On the other hand, globalized markets and supply chains are dominated by trillion-dollar cloud companies with huge purchasing power and commitments already in place.  Materials like ABF, as well as advanced resins and foils, come from only one or a few sources worldwide.

We are seeing a scramble to re-establish sovereign supply chains for critical materials and components that have been outsourced over time as the demands of the commercial electronics sector have shaped the industry. It’s true, however, that the US has retained significant military-related manufacturing capabilities. In PCB manufacturing, over 50% of PCBs made locally are for defense applications. But the design expertise and manufacturing capabilities needed to realize high-performing PCBs for software-defined warfare systems are becoming increasingly advanced. Trace dimensions are becoming comparable to signal wavelength, which calls for tighter manufacturing tolerances.

It is becoming vitally important to simulate new designs before committing to manufacture and to use techniques such as digital twins to evaluate performance effectively. However, increasing both know-how and production capacity, while establishing secure supplies of the most advanced components and materials needed, will demand persistence and sustained investment.

While demands for cutting-edge capabilities and performance – within compact and portable form factors that are critical to ensure ease of use in the field – are intensifying, the military will always demand high ruggedness and reliability. It will be important for them to find suppliers that not only can provide the required components and materials but also maintain AS9100-certified quality management systems.

And while the military may be able to insist on access to supplies, those wielding the power must also recognize that the nation’s data centers are the places where the AI models needed to drive software-defined warfare will be trained. The enormous capabilities and expertise amassed in the private AI sector are beyond anything authorities can build exclusively for themselves. Thus, these facilities must now be viewed as critical national security assets. The hyperscalers and the military must thrive together because, in many ways, the outcome of future wars will be determined in these data centers.End of article content 

Alun Morgan is technology ambassador at Ventec International Group (venteclaminates.com); alun.morgan@ventec-europe.com. His column runs monthly.