Ferranti Plc is developing a chip set implementation of the next generation US Department of Defense Mil-Std-1750B airborne computer architecture and instruction set that has been established to standardise airborne computers and facilitate the introduction of the Ada as the universal military programming language. Ahead of the chip set implementation, Ferranti has just delivered five bit-slice processors to the current 1750A specification to British Aerospace Brough. Four will be used with waveform generators for electronic flight simulation displays, and the fifth in an integrated navigation aid for air-to-ground weapon aiming. Use of microcoded bit-slice processors enables Ferranti to upgrade the CPUs quickly to the 1750B specification.
