And there are hundreds of different varieties. Mass. Not everyone is so sanguine. Identifying the devices that are not compliant and assessing the effect of them on the environment in which they operate is complicated. Corporations spent a lot of time and money bug-checking the front office software code on their mainframe computers for Y2K compliance before realizing an even bigger problem existed on the plant floor in automation controls and other systems running on embedded chips. A massive catch-up effort is under way, at least in the United States.
Experts can only estimate.
At a pharmaceutical firm with operations in 39 countries, for example, Tava found 4,457 embedded processors in the laboratory equipment and manufacturing facilities of one location. The effort to achieve compliance is one of damage mitigation. The effects of a maverick embedded processor are unpredictable. It depends on where it exists in the chain and what is connected to it. Typically, these chips gather a lot of information to make limited decisions.