The new design also makes hardware and software upgrades easier, according to Tsikalas. A key enabler is the more than 10-fold reduction in the amount of low-level, board-specific software, i.e. firmware. The functions that this board-resident software provided–such as built-in test and hardware initialization–are now performed by "non-resident boot software" that is loadable in the field. Firmware was one of the bottlenecks of the earlier data loading system, he says. But to have swapped existing components for speedier versions would have required airlines to return the modules to Honeywell, which would have been "fairly unpalatable." Honeywell also has converted the AIMS automatic test equipment interface to support the more standard EADS ATEC test equipment rather than the Honeywell STS test station.