Multilayer PCB Reverse Engineering

While there are any number of companies who claim to be able to reverse engineer and manufacture dual sided PCB’s, the skills necessary to create form-fit-function replacements of multilayer pcb’s in the world of military equipment and systems, reduce this list substantially. Competencies required for this analysis go well beyond point to point connectivity and encompass the full spectrum of electrical component and load analysis all in service of a form-fit-function replacement at the boundary. Keep in mind that depending on the goals of the project, the new pcb might internally look quite different than the original pcb design when one considers goals of cost reduction, obsolescence, and component availability.

What Capabilities are needed for CCA Reverse-Engineering?

When an original TDP is incomplete, incorrect, or not at all available, then a team like PHT Aerospace is needed to insure that a fully procurable, cost effective spare can be created and manufactured. To perform this work, the following capabilities are critical:

1.       Ability to comprehend the complete electrical specification and tolerances at the margins of the systems under discussion.

2.       Ability to reverse engineer in three dimensions, the mechanical footprint of the board and surface or attached components so as to fit perfectly into a preexisting backplane enclosure

3.       Advanced understanding of power consumption and power distribution across a multilayer pcb.

4.       Ability to produce hardened FPGA’s to replace older discrete TTL components for better cost and reliability.

5.       Ability to understand environmental requirements at both component and system level and the ability to qualify the design over a range that may be as much as -40C to 125C, the full mil spec temperature range.

6.       Complete understanding of both military and commercial avionics qualification processes and documentation.

7.       Ability to build custom test sets for qual of reengineered system that presents original electrical stimulus for all functional use cases, at the boundaries.

8.       Ability to manufacture a fully qualified and functional pcb. A willingness to potentially do this in small production quantities.

9.       Ability to produce Gerber Files and/or a complete TDP for resulting design.

10.   Ability to support critical subsystems in the field when necessary.

Unique PCB Reverse Engineering Capabilities

In just one example, PHT was able to successfully reverse engineer the pcb for multiple CCA’s for an advanced radar system for the F16 fighter jet.  In this application, existing scematic documentation was incorrect and original gerber files for the multilayer pcb were not available. In our analysis, we found small but catastrophic missing, erroneous, or out-of-date technical information which we had to verify and correct in order to be able to develop and manufacture a FFF CCA. As part of this work, PHT Aerospace developed a methodology, which mitigates many of the known performance risks and resulted in a CCA that worked in the rest of the system, even though documentation for the rest of that system was not even available.

For further information on our team and our capabilities in the military aerospace arena and beyond, please contact us today.

Content originally posted on: https://www.phtaerospace.com/multilayer-pcb-reverse-engineering/

PHT Aerospace LLC Corporation Awards WSI Digital Marketing and Website Re-engineering Contract

WSI has announced that it has recently partnered with the PHT Aerospace of Pompton lakes, New Jersey to redesign their website, increase their search visibility and implement a digital brand marketing program. The new website can be viewed at https://www.phtaerospace.com/ .

PHT Aerospace LLC is AS 9100D certified aerospace engineering and manufacturing company capable of designing new systems or reverse engineering parts to original specification. They provide help to develop specifications, reverse-engineer and re-design obsolete items, build and test prototypes and qualify systems through rigorous qualification testing. PHT has engineered, built, qualified, and managed production of subsystems for the US Navy, the US Air Force and many other subcontractors and manufacturers.

WSI Marketing Program For PHT Aerospace

WSI was engaged to do the web design and implementation, as well as provide all the copywriting and SEO operations for the new business initiative. WSI reviewed and did extensive background research on the competitive environment for reverse engineering companies, especially those with the AS9100D certification and designed a custom solution that would both lend credibility to the offline sales activities and improve brand visibility.

As a result of detailed competitive analysis, WSI created unique, SEO optimized page content catering to the unique and diverse product offering of the company. These custom pages and graphics developed by WSI include content for:

• Aircraft Wingtip Lighting
• Motors-Actuators
• Reverse Engineering
• Obsolescence Engineering
• Military Aviation

The marketing program that WSI has implemented for PHT Aerospace LLC includes organic Search Engine Optimization, content marketing and social media advertising. WSI’s SEO Program will also produce quality blog, graphic, social media and video content to syndicate on external web properties including WordPress, Weeblyand Blogspot in addition to several other WSI proprietary content distribution platforms.

Call WSI for a Digital Branding Overview

For those looking to see what a truly intelligent and comprehensive marketing solution looks like, please give WSI a call today.

This blog originally published at https://wsinetmarketing.com/ winm-pht-aerospace-partnership/

Content originally posted on: https://www.phtaerospace.com/pht-aerospace-llc-corporation-awards-wsi-digital-marketing-and-website-re-engineering-contract/

A Process for Military System Reverse Engineering for Avionics Systems

When confronted with a multilayer circuit card or subsystem for which spares are all but unobtainable, and documentation is wishful thinking, the use of forward looking design options can be limited. “Often we are required to use legacy production test equipment as part of final qualification,” Notes Patrick Antaki, lead engineer at PHT Aerospace. “This means that we must go beyond functional compatibility and achieve something close to real timing equivalence despite the fact that newer FPGA’s and other components are capable of much faster speeds.”

Challenges in reproducing legacy avionics systems don’t stop there. Experienced engineers will be familiar with level shifters, off card signal buffering, overshoot correction and load tuning, emi reduction, and pcb design rule specification as just some of the tricks required to make 21st century electronics look and behave like a 30 or even 50 year old legacy system.

What is required in every case, is a proven process that is both comprehensive and detail oriented enough to insure that use cases both inside and external to our system (a system that may not even be documented) are not missed or mischaracterized in any way.

PHT’s Reverse Engineering Processes

Through years of avionic system reengineering, the team at PHT has developed a process that remains mostly intact at a high level, when confronted with most reverse engineering challenges. An example of this process applied to the recent reverse engineering of a 12 layer CCA used in the radar solution of a jet fighter, goes something like this:

1. Capture the complete design in digital simulation, including timing parameters
2. Develop our own simulation vectors
3. Apply these simulation vectors as test patterns (using a newly developed tester) to the legacy CCA to try to match-up our simulation with the physical legacy CCA. These vectors may not match the in-situ use of the CCA, but they are a first step for confirmation of our logic design.
4. Build our new CCA and implement the design based on our own generated test / simulation vectors set. Note that our design mostly resides within the FPGA logic, rather than being significantly dependent on the rest of the hardware PCB design.
5. When we gain physical access to a radar system (or to a legacy tester), we will capture actual digital patterns as applied to, and responded by, the legacy CCA (as well as our prototype CCA). This is one of the engineering functions of the new tester we will design, which will allow engineers to extract that data easily, on-the-fly and in-situ during radar operation. Our design will extract data that includes both digital patterns as well as parametric data (voltage levels, rise/fall times, etc.)
6. We will then use the extracted “real” functional vectors in our tester to continue to verify, adjust, and reconfirm our CCA design (as well as its matching the legacy CCA).
7. A few iterations of this process will lead to a complete and highly repeatable new CCA design (with FPGA program).
8. The same tester is versatile enough to use in engineering prototype testing, in-situ testing and vector data acquisition, as well as for manufacturing testing.
9. As a design philosophy, we intend to achieve a match for all three “CCAs”: digital simulation, legacy CCA and the new design CCA (including production units). This is the only means of “gaining control” over the design with confidence, and ensuring that no small details fall-through, even if the new CCA functions within the radar system.

Add to this process the details of electrical and environmental testing, burn-in, as well as field qualification, and you have a skeleton understanding of the level of detail and careful design considerations that are front of mind during analysis and design.

These considerations and test equipment are often carried forward on location for the various in-situ testing stages where we bring with us all development tools, including CCAs and our tester and associated technical equipment to allow for immediate changes, updates, improvements to the new CCA design or tester as needed.

Legacy system qualification and design requires significant experience and deep understanding of the nature of legacy system reproduction.

Call PHT Aerospace to discuss your Reverse Engineering or Obsolescence challenges, today.

Content originally posted on: https://www.phtaerospace.com/military-reverse-engineering-for-avionics-systems/

Common Types of Aircraft Navigation Lighting

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While military and commercial aircraft share some common conventions with respect to types, color and usage of external lights, differences exist in the goals and capabilities of similar systems. An obvious example might be the use of external lighting on stealth aircraft. It doesn’t help the cause if the enemy can see your wingtip lighting while you are miles from your approach. But on a commercial aircraft, not being able to see your wingtip lighting during a night approach could be tantamount to disaster.

Still, the common problems of visibility must be solved in non-combat situations and It turns out that something as seemingly simple as a light bulb, has many complexities when placed in the harsh environment of a jet during approach to a crowded city area runway. As designers of lighting systems on aircraft like the F16 and B1 bomber, PHT Aerospace understands the requirements of Aircraft Lighting Systems in both operational and production environments.

Wing-Tip Lighting – A.K.A. Navigation 
Lights Aircraft navigation lights are required to be lighted on aircraft operated on the surface and in flight from sunset to sunrise. In addition, aircraft equipped with an anti-collision light system are required to operate that light system during all types of operations (day and night). However, during any adverse meteorological conditions, the pilot-in-command may determine that the anti-collision lights should be turned off when their light output would constitute a hazard to safety.

Anti-Collision Lighting 
An aircraft anti-collision light system can use one or more rotating beacons and/or strobe lights. These are typically colored either red or white and have stronger intensities as compared to other aircraft. Many aircraft have both a rotating beacon and a strobe light system. Supplementary strobe lights should be turned off on the ground when they adversely affect ground personnel or other pilots, and in flight when there are reflections from clouds.

Wing lights
Many airliners feature lights along the root of the wing leading edge that can be used to illuminate the wing and engine pylons in flight. These lights may be used to make the plane more visible during takeoff and landing or to inspect the wings for damage in flight. Pilots can also use the wing lights to inspect the wings and slats for any ice that might build up when flying through clouds.

Landing lights
Bright white landing lights are usually fitted to most planes for enhanced visibility during landing. These lights can also be used to illuminate the runway at poorly lit airports. They are often required for night landings but also commonly used during the day as well to make the plane more noticeable. While the usage of these lights is common, their location can vary from plane to plane. Landing lights may be located in the wing root, in the outboard wing, or somewhere along the forward fuselage. Some aircraft are equipped with multiple sets of landing lights in more than one of these locations. The 737, for example, has inboard landing lights located in the wing root as well as outboard landing lights in the outboard flap fairings.

PHT Aerospace’s Team are Aircraft Lighting Experts
PHT Aerospace has the unique understanding of how to create form-fit-function replacement systems in the military and commercial aviation world. PHT has reverse engineered lighting systems for complex aircraft like the B1 bomber and the F16 and manages all production for these systems.

PHT can design and assume production of your aircraft lighting system be it commercial or military. We specialize in small quantity production.
Please call us today.

Content originally posted on: https://www.phtaerospace.com/common-types-of-aircraft-navigation-lighting/

What is AS9100D?

In 2018, PHT Aerospace achieved the AS9100 Revision D certification for quality management. As a premier provider of reverse engineering services for the military, the effort to qualify for this demonstrates our quality commitment to the marketplace, and the aerospace sector.

AS9100 Revision D is a quality management system standard for the aerospace industry. It is based on ISO 9001:2015, and provides additional requirements specific to the aerospace industry. Initially released by the Society of Automotive Engineers, SAE International in 1999, it has been revised since then from AS9000 to AS 9100. AS9100D is the latest release.

AS9100 is the result of the combined effort a various aerospace organizations that had each their own quality management standards or specifications. The harmonization of their requirements while using as a base ISO 9001, with its careful process related approach, drove the release of AS9100 and ended a period where it was extremely difficult to comply with the various requirements of these organizations.

PHT achieved AS9100D compliance by implementing additional requirements, which go above and beyond the quality requirements of ISO 9001 in order to ensure product safety and efficacy.

Just like other standards such as ISO 9001 and ISO 14001, certification assessments are done by registrars worldwide.

For more information visit our website at https://phtaerospace.com 

Content originally posted on: https://www.phtaerospace.com/what-is-as9100d/

Welcome to PHT Aerospace

Thanks for visiting our new digital home, https://phtaerospace.com 

PHT Aerospace provides general Military and Aerospace contract manufacturing. Typically our projects are under the DOD but often come to us through prime military contractors or other subcontractors. We also accept commercial avionics work in our  area’s of expertise.

These area’s include but are not limited to:

• Power Supply Design – Either build to print or reverse engineered to preserve an existing system
• Motors & Actuators – Either build to print or reverse engineered. Our systems control flight surfaces and other elements of active fighter jets.
• Radar Systems – Either build to print or reverse engineered. We have extensive experience with FFF replacement of multilayer pcb’s when no TDP is available.
• Aircraft lighting – a Special competency in aircraft navigation lights. We designed the lighting and power for the B1 wingtip lights among others.
• Reverse Engineering for Obsolete parts and subsystems – including both electrical and mechanical FFF replacement.
• Build To print – Production capabilities for those who want a fully qualified run from an experienced, DOD preferred vendor. Small production runs are not a problem for us

In 2017, PHT successfully achieved AS9100D certification as a demonstration of our long standing commitment to quality, and the aerospace sector in particular.

For more information, please contact us or visit our website at the link above.

Content originally posted on: https://www.phtaerospace.com/welcome-to-pht-aerospace/