US To Cut Planned Buy Of AMRAAM Missiles Over Integrated Circuit Issue

The United States air force and navy are cutting their planned buy of Raytheon-built AMRAAM air-to-air missiles for fiscal year 2018 due to problems developing an integrated circuit.

The AMRAAM’s obsolescence upgrade, called Form, Fit, Function Refresh (F3R), affects 15 circuit cards that comprise about half of the missile’s guidance section, according to Air Force documents obtained by Defense News.

According to the report, the main issue is with the application specific integrated circuit (ASIC), a processor that will be used to execute the missile’s software.

“There was an issue with one component that was critical to the upgrade that delayed us a bit, and we had to re-plan elements of that,” Mike Jarrett, Raytheon’s vice president of air warfare systems, said during a June interview at Paris Air Show.

It is reported that both the services will cut the planned buy by hundreds of missiles, and a key test has also been delayed by more than a year.

AMRAAM is carried on F-16, F-15, F/A-18, F-22, Typhoon, Gripen, Tornado and Harrier fighters.