Commerce and State Change Jurisdiction for Rad-Hardened Microelectronic Circuits

The Commerce and State departments published changes to their respective export control regulations, the Export Administration Regulations (EAR) and International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) to change the scope of radiation hardened microelectronic circuits that are subject to the export jurisdiction of the ITAR.

Specifically, in Category XV of the US Munitions List in the ITAR, paragraph (d)(4) was changed from single event upset rate of 1 X 10 to the minus seven power to a single event upset rate of 1 X 10 to the minus ten power.

This paragraph (d) in Category XV controls any device with all five of the rad hardening characteristics in (d)(1) - (5). If a device does not have all five of those characteristics, it falls under the jurisdiction of the EAR. Of course, any device designed, modified, configured or adapted for space use falls under the ITAR regardless of its rad hardening characteristics.