A still from the JAF's coverage of Exercise ‘Decisive Response' shows a soldier operating a JODDB counter-UAV jamming system. (Jordanian Armed Forces)

A Jordanian mechanised infantry brigade used various types of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) for the first time during a live-fire exercise viewed by King Abdullah II.

The television coverage of Exercise ‘Decisive Response' that was broadcast on 13 September showed a Schiebel Camcopter S-100 rotary UAV, an Al-Basheq vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) UAV, an armed multicopter, and smaller commercial quadcopters being used to support the 12th Yarmouk Mechanised Brigade, a formation from the Jordanian Armed Forces' (JAF's) Northern Military Region.

Brigadier General Hasan Abu Rumman, commander of the Northern Military Region, said the exercise aimed to keep pace with the development of modern warfare and was the first to use UAVs.

“This is considered a qualitative addition to the exercises of the Jordanian Armed Forces and we hope that in the future it will be used more widely and in an optimal way,” he said.

A new, flexible silicon-on-polymer semiconductor chip developed by the US Air Force Research Laboratory. (US Air Force)

The US Department of Defense (DoD) has inked a 10-year, USD3.1 billion semiconductor manufacturing deal with New York-based GlobalFoundries (GF), to produce critical microelectronics (ME) for current and future aerospace systems and weapons platforms.

GF will receive USD17.3 million up front, as part of the contract with the department's Defense Microelectronics Activity (DMEA), according to a 21 September company statement. As per the terms of the contract, drafted by DMEA's Trusted Access Program Office (TAPO), the Pentagon and department contractors will have access to GF-built semiconductor technologies over the next decade, the statement said.

Aside from DoD access to domestically built ME systems and components from GF, the Pentagon will also have access to the company's “design ecosystem, IP [internet protocol] libraries, early access to new technologies in development, quick and efficient prototyping, and full-scale volume manufacturing”, the statement noted.

DARPA's Diverse Accessible Heterogeneous Integration effort is developing transistor-scale heterogeneous integration processes seeking to combine advanced compound semiconductor wafers with CMOS technology. Pictured here is a DAHI wafer. (Northrop Grumman)

The US Department of Defense (DoD) has officially announced the eight new research and development (R&D) hubs in the United States that will make up the department's new Microelectronics (ME) Commons.

The ME Commons initiative, funded through the Creating Helpful Incentives to Produce Semiconductors (CHIPS) Act of 2002, is designed to “get the most cutting-edge microchips into systems our troops use every day ... [while] reducing our reliance on foreign components, keeping us safe from the risks of supply chain disruption”, Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks said during a 20 September briefing at the Pentagon.

Managed by the Strategic & Spectrum Missions Advanced Resilient Trusted Systems (S2MARTS), Other Transaction Authority (OTA), and Naval Surface Warfare Center (NSWC), the ME Commons will interconnect the series of regional R&D hubs focusing on different sectors of ME capability development.