Pentagon Worries About Chinese Chips

Washington, D.C. – At a conference in Washington, D.C., this week, a Department of Defense official sounded a startling alarm.

“The defense community is critically reliant on a technology that obsoletes itself every 18 months, is made in unsecure locations and over which we have absolutely no market share influence,” said Ted J. Glum, director of the DoD’s Defense Microelectronics Activity unit.

“Other than that,” he cracked, “we’re good.”

Glum addressed his comments to a crowd of defense officials and industry execs gathered for the 2008 Common Defense Conference, or ComDef, an internationally focused event held annually in Washington.

This year, threats to computer networks were front and center. But Glum underscored that the Pentagon has hardware headaches too, particularly when it comes to microprocessors. Ninety percent of the department’s obsolescence problems, he said, are related to electronics.

Full story at Forbes.com