AbstractThe U.S. Department of Defence (DoD) has undertaken the task of modernizing the procedure for qualification of military high‐quality/high‐reliability microcircuits. This new approach, known as generic qualification, will develop a qualified manufacturers list (QML) which will permit certification of design, fabrication, assembly and packaging using an innovative approach. The objective is to have a single process flow on which both commercial and military product will be indistinguishable and only at qualification testing (which is revolutionary) will the differences be evident. The realization of this change is implementation of statistical process control (SPC) methodologies and total quality management (T