Raytheon to develop new system-on-a-chip technology

Raytheon to develop new system-on-a-chip technology

Roseanne Gerin
Staff Writer

Raytheon Co. won a $27.6 million contract from the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency to develop a programmable computing system based on a very fast, powerful and versatile chip, the company said.

Under the Morphable Networked Micro-Architecture project called Monarch, the company will develop a system that can alternate simultaneously between front-end and back-end processing through the use of IBM Cu-08 90-nanometer chip-making technology.

"In the past, a bank of processor boards accepted information and another bank processed it," said Jack Kelble, president of Raytheon's space and airborne systems unit. "Now, a tiny but highly sophisticated device a fraction of the size will perform both functions with unprecedented speed, power and capacity to store and process a vast amount of data."

Monarch's ability to perform in a single-chip or a system-on-a-chip role will allow it to significantly reduce the number and types of processors required for computing systems. The device will later be able to process incoming and outgoing data while analyzing it.

Raytheon's space and airborne systems division will work with the Information Science Institute at the University of Southern California to create an integrated large-scale system on a chip with software development tools for programs that can be used by the Defense Department and commercial applications.

The project's subcontractors include IBM Corp., the Georgia Institute of Technology and Mercury Computer Systems Inc.

Headquartered in Waltham, Mass., Raytheon employs 80,000 people worldwide and had 2004 revenue of $20.2 billion. The company is No. 7 on Washington Technology's 2005 Top 100 list of federal prime contractors. Its space and airborne systems division, based in El Segundo, Calif., provides sensor systems for the network-centric battlefield.