| Never before has US state bureaucracy and dual-use | | | | ("QRS technology" integrated on a silicon chip), |
| technology with both military and commercial | | | | sometimes known as quartz inertial sensors or quartz |
| applications, caused such a disproportionate rumpus | | | | inertial rate sensors. On some Boeing aircraft, some |
| as when Boeing came up against the State | | | | as a result of modifications, three BEI microchips, |
| Department in 2003 for violating the Arms Control | | | | MEMS based sensors, motion sensors or |
| Act. What was their crime? ...selling commercial | | | | accelerometers, are embedded in avionics made by |
| aircraft without obtaining an export license for BEI | | | | French company Thales. In size, they are extremely |
| gyrochips, sensor technology also used in defence | | | | small and are built with microelectromechanical |
| applications. Laughably, President Bush himself | | | | systems, MEMS technologies. Acting together, the |
| personally signed off on the deliveries. Had Boeing | | | | three chips provide a three-dimensional positional |
| knowingly defied the State Department? After all, | | | | reading, telling the pilot through flight displays the |
| previous cases against Loral and Hughes Electronics | | | | precise yaw, roll and pitch of the aircraft. They are |
| had been settled with multimillion-dollar fines. It was a | | | | solid-state, have no moving parts and act as a |
| case with implications for all commercial organisations | | | | back-up to spinning gyroscopes, but are also used in |
| engaged in the export of aircraft parts. So much | | | | guided missiles, so are classified as military items. With |
| MRO business is with commercial aircraft, so it is | | | | the passage of time, they will assuredly become |
| critically important to understand the distinctions. | | | | more commonplace than this one application in |
| Quartz rate sensors ("QRS technology") | | | | equipment supplied by Thales Avionics. |
| BEI microchips are solid-state quartz rate sensors | | | | |