COTS und industry-grade?

[senmeis]

Hi,

are COTS components identical with industry-grade?

Senmeis

 

[dick_freebird]

No.

COTS means commercial off-the-shelf. Which is anything
you can buy, from whoever you like. And that's not all
that trustworthy taken to the margins.

Industrial usually means a -40C to 85C temperature
rating. Used to mean ceramic package, but now you
find many "enhanced plastic" and even pretty normal
mold compounds spec'd to that range (moisture
resistance, how / whether spec'd, you'd best look
into).

Now commercial people don't even think to ask about
"COTS" because to them it's normal (just make sure
you trust your supply chain, that it isn't full of board
strip and rebrand junk from the gray market, etc.).
So I'd guess you are thinking about something for
either space or military end use.

Military, and "real" (i.e. must work, for long, under
contract) space stuff levies many quality specs
that make inserting COTS parts difficult. You have
the job of proving all of the stuff that a MIL spec
or QML part manufacturer does during development
and manufacturing, from the outside. Upscreening
can end up about the same, only you decide to
some extent who gets the profit margin, the mfr
or your hired test and qualification outfit (I figure
if you're asking this question, you aren't one and
don't have one on staff). You eat a lot of parts,
infrastructure, time and rent getting there. It
makes sense for a company that uses something
by the thousands. Burning 100+ units to qualify
the ten you need, well... not so nice.

But there's space, and there's space. Today many
universities are all excited to launch their own
Cubesat and since it's all just this semester's
science project, and who cares how soon after
you get your "A" it turns into simple orbital debris,
you can put together whatever bodge of Radio
Shack seconds, eBay scrounge and Krazy Glue
you want, so long as you convince your ride
that you're not going to outgas or explode on
the way up.

You have to get your mind right about what you
really want from the system, and what kind of
parts give you acceptable odds of getting it, and
who says so.