The NASA SBIR and STTR programs fund the research, development, and demonstration of innovative technologies that fulfill NASA needs as described in the annual Solicitations and have significant potential for successful commercialization. If you are a small business concern (SBC) with 500 or fewer employees or a non-profit RI such as a university or a research laboratory with ties to an SBC, then NASA encourages you to learn more about the SBIR and STTR programs as a potential source of seed funding for the development of your innovations.
The SBIR and STTR programs have 3 phases:
The SBIR and STTR Phase I contracts last for 6 months with a maximum funding of $125,000, and Phase II contracts last for 24 months with a maximum funding of $750,000 - $1.5 million.
Opportunity for Continued Technology Development Post-Phase II:
The NASA SBIR/STTR Program currently has in place two initiatives for supporting its small business partners past the basic Phase I and Phase II elements of the program that emphasize opportunities for commercialization. Specifically, the NASA SBIR/STTR Program has the Phase II Enhancement (Phase II-E) and Phase II eXpanded (Phase II-X) contract options.
Please review the links below to obtain more information on the SBIR/STTR programs.
Provides an overview of the SBIR and STTR programs as implemented by NASA
Provides access to the annual SBIR/STTR Solicitations containing detailed information on the program eligibility requirements, proposal instructions and research topics and subtopics
Schedule and links for the SBIR/STTR solicitations and selection announcements
Federal and non-Federal sources of assistance for small business
Search our complete archive of awarded project abstracts to learn about what NASA has funded
Still have questions? Visit the program FAQs
","parentProgram":{"ableToSelect":false,"isActive":true,"description":"Catalyst is a portfolio of early stage programs that specialize in different innovation constituencies and mechanisms to push the state of the art in aerospace technology development","programId":92327,"responsibleMd":{"canUserEdit":false,"locationEdit":false,"organizationRolePretty":"","organizationTypePretty":""},"title":"Catalyst","acronymOrTitle":"Catalyst"},"parentProgramId":92327,"programId":73,"responsibleMd":{"organizationId":4875,"organizationName":"Space Technology Mission Directorate","acronym":"STMD","organizationType":"NASA_Mission_Directorate","canUserEdit":false,"locationEdit":false,"organizationRolePretty":"","organizationTypePretty":"NASA Mission Directorate"},"responsibleMdOffice":4875,"stockImageFileId":36648,"title":"Small Business Innovation Research/Small Business Tech Transfer","acronymOrTitle":"SBIR/STTR"},"description":"Alphacore, Inc. proposes to design and characterize a 24Gsps (giga-samples per-second), 6-bit, low-power, and low-cost analog-to-digital converter (ADC) for use in a wide range of NASA's microwave sensor based remote sensing applications. The goal of this program is to provide an ultra-high-speed, low-power ADC that does both, provides excellent interfacing capabilities to top FPGAs and also has an optimized low-power spectrometer DSP backend available to be integrated on the same chip. The proposed ADC employs an innovative topology with high-bandwidth front-end sampling circuit combined with a flash-type ADC and encoder circuitry that simplifies FPGA interfacing. Innovative and effective digital calibration is used to guarantee spurious free Nyquist frequency band which is an important requirement in remote sensing applications.Comparable commercial ADCs are based on expensive and power-hungry bipolar transistor technologies such as indium phosphide (InP), gallium arsenide (GaAs) and silicon germanium (SiGe). Alphacore designs take advantage of the latest low-power, high-speed digital CMOS processes, resulting in ADC power consumption that is less than 1/8 of the power consumption of competitor ADCs. Using a CMOS process provides additional advantages in that we can leverage existing intellectual property (IP) to enhance the system-level integration of the ADC, e.g., on-chip digital calibration logic, data buffer memory, high-speed transceiver logic, and direct on-chip DSP capabilities.","benefits":"The goal of this program is to provide an ultra-high-speed, low-power ADC that does both, provides excellent interfacing capabilities to top FPGAs and also has an optimized low-power spectrometer DSP backend available to be integrated on the same chip. Natural and human-induced changes in Earth's interior, land surface, biosphere, atmosphere, and oceans affect all aspects of life. Understanding these changes requires a range of observations acquired from land-, sea-, air-, and space-based platforms. NASA is seeking innovative technologies to support future radar and radiometer sensors missions and applications.The NASA SBIR and STTR programs fund the research, development, and demonstration of innovative technologies that fulfill NASA needs as described in the annual Solicitations and have significant potential for successful commercialization. If you are a small business concern (SBC) with 500 or fewer employees or a non-profit RI such as a university or a research laboratory with ties to an SBC, then NASA encourages you to learn more about the SBIR and STTR programs as a potential source of seed funding for the development of your innovations.
The SBIR and STTR programs have 3 phases:
The SBIR and STTR Phase I contracts last for 6 months with a maximum funding of $125,000, and Phase II contracts last for 24 months with a maximum funding of $750,000 - $1.5 million.
Opportunity for Continued Technology Development Post-Phase II:
The NASA SBIR/STTR Program currently has in place two initiatives for supporting its small business partners past the basic Phase I and Phase II elements of the program that emphasize opportunities for commercialization. Specifically, the NASA SBIR/STTR Program has the Phase II Enhancement (Phase II-E) and Phase II eXpanded (Phase II-X) contract options.
Please review the links below to obtain more information on the SBIR/STTR programs.
Provides an overview of the SBIR and STTR programs as implemented by NASA
Provides access to the annual SBIR/STTR Solicitations containing detailed information on the program eligibility requirements, proposal instructions and research topics and subtopics
Schedule and links for the SBIR/STTR solicitations and selection announcements
Federal and non-Federal sources of assistance for small business
Search our complete archive of awarded project abstracts to learn about what NASA has funded
Still have questions? Visit the program FAQs
","parentProgram":{"ableToSelect":false,"isActive":true,"description":"Catalyst is a portfolio of early stage programs that specialize in different innovation constituencies and mechanisms to push the state of the art in aerospace technology development","programId":92327,"responsibleMd":{"canUserEdit":false,"locationEdit":false,"organizationRolePretty":"","organizationTypePretty":""},"title":"Catalyst","acronymOrTitle":"Catalyst"},"parentProgramId":92327,"programId":73,"responsibleMd":{"organizationId":4875,"organizationName":"Space Technology Mission Directorate","acronym":"STMD","organizationType":"NASA_Mission_Directorate","canUserEdit":false,"locationEdit":false,"organizationRolePretty":"","organizationTypePretty":"NASA Mission Directorate"},"responsibleMdOffice":4875,"stockImageFileId":36648,"title":"Small Business Innovation Research/Small Business Tech Transfer","acronymOrTitle":"SBIR/STTR"},"description":"Alphacore, Inc. proposes to design and characterize a 24Gsps (giga-samples per-second), 6-bit, low-power, and low-cost analog-to-digital converter (ADC) for use in a wide range of NASA's microwave sensor based remote sensing applications. The goal of this program is to provide an ultra-high-speed, low-power ADC that does both, provides excellent interfacing capabilities to top FPGAs and also has an optimized low-power spectrometer DSP backend available to be integrated on the same chip. The proposed ADC employs an innovative topology with high-bandwidth front-end sampling circuit combined with a flash-type ADC and encoder circuitry that simplifies FPGA interfacing. Innovative and effective digital calibration is used to guarantee spurious free Nyquist frequency band which is an important requirement in remote sensing applications.Comparable commercial ADCs are based on expensive and power-hungry bipolar transistor technologies such as indium phosphide (InP), gallium arsenide (GaAs) and silicon germanium (SiGe). Alphacore designs take advantage of the latest low-power, high-speed digital CMOS processes, resulting in ADC power consumption that is less than 1/8 of the power consumption of competitor ADCs. Using a CMOS process provides additional advantages in that we can leverage existing intellectual property (IP) to enhance the system-level integration of the ADC, e.g., on-chip digital calibration logic, data buffer memory, high-speed transceiver logic, and direct on-chip DSP capabilities.","benefits":"The goal of this program is to provide an ultra-high-speed, low-power ADC that does both, provides excellent interfacing capabilities to top FPGAs and also has an optimized low-power spectrometer DSP backend available to be integrated on the same chip. Natural and human-induced changes in Earth's interior, land surface, biosphere, atmosphere, and oceans affect all aspects of life. Understanding these changes requires a range of observations acquired from land-, sea-, air-, and space-based platforms. NASA is seeking innovative technologies to support future radar and radiometer sensors missions and applications.The NASA SBIR and STTR programs fund the research, development, and demonstration of innovative technologies that fulfill NASA needs as described in the annual Solicitations and have significant potential for successful commercialization. If you are a small business concern (SBC) with 500 or fewer employees or a non-profit RI such as a university or a research laboratory with ties to an SBC, then NASA encourages you to learn more about the SBIR and STTR programs as a potential source of seed funding for the development of your innovations.
The SBIR and STTR programs have 3 phases:
The SBIR and STTR Phase I contracts last for 6 months with a maximum funding of $125,000, and Phase II contracts last for 24 months with a maximum funding of $750,000 - $1.5 million.
Opportunity for Continued Technology Development Post-Phase II:
The NASA SBIR/STTR Program currently has in place two initiatives for supporting its small business partners past the basic Phase I and Phase II elements of the program that emphasize opportunities for commercialization. Specifically, the NASA SBIR/STTR Program has the Phase II Enhancement (Phase II-E) and Phase II eXpanded (Phase II-X) contract options.
Please review the links below to obtain more information on the SBIR/STTR programs.
Provides an overview of the SBIR and STTR programs as implemented by NASA
Provides access to the annual SBIR/STTR Solicitations containing detailed information on the program eligibility requirements, proposal instructions and research topics and subtopics
Schedule and links for the SBIR/STTR solicitations and selection announcements
Federal and non-Federal sources of assistance for small business
Search our complete archive of awarded project abstracts to learn about what NASA has funded
Still have questions? Visit the program FAQs
","parentProgram":{"ableToSelect":false,"isActive":true,"description":"Catalyst is a portfolio of early stage programs that specialize in different innovation constituencies and mechanisms to push the state of the art in aerospace technology development","programId":92327,"responsibleMd":{"canUserEdit":false,"locationEdit":false,"organizationRolePretty":"","organizationTypePretty":""},"title":"Catalyst","acronymOrTitle":"Catalyst"},"parentProgramId":92327,"programId":73,"responsibleMd":{"organizationId":4875,"organizationName":"Space Technology Mission Directorate","acronym":"STMD","organizationType":"NASA_Mission_Directorate","canUserEdit":false,"locationEdit":false,"organizationRolePretty":"","organizationTypePretty":"NASA Mission Directorate"},"responsibleMdOffice":4875,"stockImageFileId":36648,"title":"Small Business Innovation Research/Small Business Tech Transfer","acronymOrTitle":"SBIR/STTR"},"description":"Alphacore, Inc. proposes to design and characterize a 24Gsps (giga-samples per-second), 6-bit, low-power, and low-cost analog-to-digital converter (ADC) for use in a wide range of NASA's microwave sensor based remote sensing applications. The goal of this program is to provide an ultra-high-speed, low-power ADC that does both, provides excellent interfacing capabilities to top FPGAs and also has an optimized low-power spectrometer DSP backend available to be integrated on the same chip. The proposed ADC employs an innovative topology with high-bandwidth front-end sampling circuit combined with a flash-type ADC and encoder circuitry that simplifies FPGA interfacing. Innovative and effective digital calibration is used to guarantee spurious free Nyquist frequency band which is an important requirement in remote sensing applications.Comparable commercial ADCs are based on expensive and power-hungry bipolar transistor technologies such as indium phosphide (InP), gallium arsenide (GaAs) and silicon germanium (SiGe). Alphacore designs take advantage of the latest low-power, high-speed digital CMOS processes, resulting in ADC power consumption that is less than 1/8 of the power consumption of competitor ADCs. Using a CMOS process provides additional advantages in that we can leverage existing intellectual property (IP) to enhance the system-level integration of the ADC, e.g., on-chip digital calibration logic, data buffer memory, high-speed transceiver logic, and direct on-chip DSP capabilities.","benefits":"The goal of this program is to provide an ultra-high-speed, low-power ADC that does both, provides excellent interfacing capabilities to top FPGAs and also has an optimized low-power spectrometer DSP backend available to be integrated on the same chip. Natural and human-induced changes in Earth's interior, land surface, biosphere, atmosphere, and oceans affect all aspects of life. Understanding these changes requires a range of observations acquired from land-, sea-, air-, and space-based platforms. NASA is seeking innovative technologies to support future radar and radiometer sensors missions and applications.The NASA SBIR and STTR programs fund the research, development, and demonstration of innovative technologies that fulfill NASA needs as described in the annual Solicitations and have significant potential for successful commercialization. If you are a small business concern (SBC) with 500 or fewer employees or a non-profit RI such as a university or a research laboratory with ties to an SBC, then NASA encourages you to learn more about the SBIR and STTR programs as a potential source of seed funding for the development of your innovations.
The SBIR and STTR programs have 3 phases:
The SBIR and STTR Phase I contracts last for 6 months with a maximum funding of $125,000, and Phase II contracts last for 24 months with a maximum funding of $750,000 - $1.5 million.
Opportunity for Continued Technology Development Post-Phase II:
The NASA SBIR/STTR Program currently has in place two initiatives for supporting its small business partners past the basic Phase I and Phase II elements of the program that emphasize opportunities for commercialization. Specifically, the NASA SBIR/STTR Program has the Phase II Enhancement (Phase II-E) and Phase II eXpanded (Phase II-X) contract options.
Please review the links below to obtain more information on the SBIR/STTR programs.
Provides an overview of the SBIR and STTR programs as implemented by NASA
Provides access to the annual SBIR/STTR Solicitations containing detailed information on the program eligibility requirements, proposal instructions and research topics and subtopics
Schedule and links for the SBIR/STTR solicitations and selection announcements
Federal and non-Federal sources of assistance for small business
Search our complete archive of awarded project abstracts to learn about what NASA has funded
Still have questions? Visit the program FAQs
","parentProgram":{"ableToSelect":false,"isActive":true,"description":"Catalyst is a portfolio of early stage programs that specialize in different innovation constituencies and mechanisms to push the state of the art in aerospace technology development","programId":92327,"responsibleMd":{"canUserEdit":false,"locationEdit":false,"organizationRolePretty":"","organizationTypePretty":""},"title":"Catalyst","acronymOrTitle":"Catalyst"},"parentProgramId":92327,"programId":73,"responsibleMd":{"organizationId":4875,"organizationName":"Space Technology Mission Directorate","acronym":"STMD","organizationType":"NASA_Mission_Directorate","canUserEdit":false,"locationEdit":false,"organizationRolePretty":"","organizationTypePretty":"NASA Mission Directorate"},"responsibleMdOffice":4875,"stockImageFileId":36648,"title":"Small Business Innovation Research/Small Business Tech Transfer","acronymOrTitle":"SBIR/STTR"},"description":"This SBIR Phase II proposal requests support for Alphacore, Inc. to design and characterize a 24 Gsps (gigasamples per second), wide input bandwidth (40 GHz), 6-bit (5.0 effective number of bits, ENOB), low-power (700 mW), and low-cost analog-to-digital converter (ADC) for use in a wide range of NASA's microwave sensor remote sensing applications. The ADC does not employ time-interleaving and provides a very wide spur free input bandwidth making it more suitable to NASA's remote sensing missions and a variety of radio astronomy applications than any other ADC available. In addition, the ADC will be radiation hard (>300krad) and thus suitable for use on-board space missions. A key innovation in Alphacore's approach to the ADC design is that we have considered how the ADC will be used in a system; a custom designed digital back-end implements digital data de-multiplexing and signal conditioning to allow seamless integration with commercially available, high-end, field programmable gate arrays (FPGA) that are the main building blocks of modern scientific spectrometers and interferometers. Alphacore's ADC provides these improvements at much lower power and lower cost than existing commercial ADCs that use off-chip components to provide these features. Alphacore's design takes advantage of the latest low-power, high-speed digital CMOS processes, resulting in ADC power consumption that is less than 1/8 of the power consumption of competitor ADCs. The proposed ADC employs an innovative topology with high-bandwidth front-end sampling circuit combined with an interpolated flash-type ADC and encoder circuitry that simplifies FPGA interfacing. All the needed clock signals are generated from a low-cost 100MHz crystal clock reference with a low-jitter (<200fs), radiation-tolerant on-chip PLL.
","benefits":"Some of the currently planned missions that benefit from Alphacore's ADC are listed below. The Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) is a 2.7 meter airborne telescope that includes multiple spectrometers covering a broad range of wavelengths. Its Heterodyne Instrument requires 64 high-bandwidth ADCs, similar to the Alphacore ADC. Global Atmospheric Composition Mission (GACM) has passive and active remote sensing instruments in low Earth orbit (LEO) including a UV spectrometer, an IR spectrometer, and a scanning Microwave limb sounder (SMLS). Alphacore's ADC that has 24GSps sampling rate, 40Ghz bandwidth and is radiation hard meets the requirements of these instruments. Compact Adaptable Microwave Limb Sounder (CAMLS) is a collection of instruments, scalable for use in balloons, aircraft and eventually in space. It is a follow-on mission for GACM, and requires digital spectrometers to cover 40 GHz of bandwidth. Six high-bandwidth (and rad-hard) ADCs are needed. Alphacore's ADC is an excellent match to this application. Airborne Scanning Microwave Limb Sounder (A-SMLS) instrument requires seven high bandwidth ADCs for analysis over the spectral range from 225 to 234 GHz. Other NASA missions that can benefit from Alphacore's ADC are TSSM, CCAT, JUICE, MARVEL and VESPER.
In addition to NASA's remote sensing applications Alphacore's ADC is a perfect match to a wide range of radio astronomy applications. Alphacore received several letters of support form the international radio astronomy community to go with this application. The features that make it an exceptional match to the requirements of international large-scale radio astronomy experiments are: seamless interfacing to FPGAs, single core design instead of time-interleaved one, very high sampling rate and bandwidth, easy clocking with an on-chip PLL, low power dissipation and low cost. The ADC also has wide commercial applicability in networking (coherent receivers, network modules), communications (software-defined radio), test equipment (high-speed digital oscilloscopes), radar and electronic warfare (EW) devices. The radiation hardness makes it suitable for commercial and defense sector space applications.
The NASA SBIR and STTR programs fund the research, development, and demonstration of innovative technologies that fulfill NASA needs as described in the annual Solicitations and have significant potential for successful commercialization. If you are a small business concern (SBC) with 500 or fewer employees or a non-profit RI such as a university or a research laboratory with ties to an SBC, then NASA encourages you to learn more about the SBIR and STTR programs as a potential source of seed funding for the development of your innovations.
The SBIR and STTR programs have 3 phases:
The SBIR and STTR Phase I contracts last for 6 months with a maximum funding of $125,000, and Phase II contracts last for 24 months with a maximum funding of $750,000 - $1.5 million.
Opportunity for Continued Technology Development Post-Phase II:
The NASA SBIR/STTR Program currently has in place two initiatives for supporting its small business partners past the basic Phase I and Phase II elements of the program that emphasize opportunities for commercialization. Specifically, the NASA SBIR/STTR Program has the Phase II Enhancement (Phase II-E) and Phase II eXpanded (Phase II-X) contract options.
Please review the links below to obtain more information on the SBIR/STTR programs.
Provides an overview of the SBIR and STTR programs as implemented by NASA
Provides access to the annual SBIR/STTR Solicitations containing detailed information on the program eligibility requirements, proposal instructions and research topics and subtopics
Schedule and links for the SBIR/STTR solicitations and selection announcements
Federal and non-Federal sources of assistance for small business
Search our complete archive of awarded project abstracts to learn about what NASA has funded
Still have questions? Visit the program FAQs
","parentProgram":{"ableToSelect":false,"isActive":true,"description":"Catalyst is a portfolio of early stage programs that specialize in different innovation constituencies and mechanisms to push the state of the art in aerospace technology development","programId":92327,"responsibleMd":{"canUserEdit":false,"locationEdit":false,"organizationRolePretty":"","organizationTypePretty":""},"title":"Catalyst","acronymOrTitle":"Catalyst"},"parentProgramId":92327,"programId":73,"responsibleMd":{"organizationId":4875,"organizationName":"Space Technology Mission Directorate","acronym":"STMD","organizationType":"NASA_Mission_Directorate","canUserEdit":false,"locationEdit":false,"organizationRolePretty":"","organizationTypePretty":"NASA Mission Directorate"},"responsibleMdOffice":4875,"stockImageFileId":36648,"title":"Small Business Innovation Research/Small Business Tech Transfer","acronymOrTitle":"SBIR/STTR"},"description":"Alphacore, Inc. proposes to design and characterize a 24Gsps (giga-samples per-second), 6-bit, low-power, and low-cost analog-to-digital converter (ADC) for use in a wide range of NASA's microwave sensor based remote sensing applications. The goal of this program is to provide an ultra-high-speed, low-power ADC that does both, provides excellent interfacing capabilities to top FPGAs and also has an optimized low-power spectrometer DSP backend available to be integrated on the same chip. The proposed ADC employs an innovative topology with high-bandwidth front-end sampling circuit combined with a flash-type ADC and encoder circuitry that simplifies FPGA interfacing. Innovative and effective digital calibration is used to guarantee spurious free Nyquist frequency band which is an important requirement in remote sensing applications.Comparable commercial ADCs are based on expensive and power-hungry bipolar transistor technologies such as indium phosphide (InP), gallium arsenide (GaAs) and silicon germanium (SiGe). Alphacore designs take advantage of the latest low-power, high-speed digital CMOS processes, resulting in ADC power consumption that is less than 1/8 of the power consumption of competitor ADCs. Using a CMOS process provides additional advantages in that we can leverage existing intellectual property (IP) to enhance the system-level integration of the ADC, e.g., on-chip digital calibration logic, data buffer memory, high-speed transceiver logic, and direct on-chip DSP capabilities.","benefits":"The goal of this program is to provide an ultra-high-speed, low-power ADC that does both, provides excellent interfacing capabilities to top FPGAs and also has an optimized low-power spectrometer DSP backend available to be integrated on the same chip. Natural and human-induced changes in Earth's interior, land surface, biosphere, atmosphere, and oceans affect all aspects of life. Understanding these changes requires a range of observations acquired from land-, sea-, air-, and space-based platforms. NASA is seeking innovative technologies to support future radar and radiometer sensors missions and applications.The NASA SBIR and STTR programs fund the research, development, and demonstration of innovative technologies that fulfill NASA needs as described in the annual Solicitations and have significant potential for successful commercialization. If you are a small business concern (SBC) with 500 or fewer employees or a non-profit RI such as a university or a research laboratory with ties to an SBC, then NASA encourages you to learn more about the SBIR and STTR programs as a potential source of seed funding for the development of your innovations.
The SBIR and STTR programs have 3 phases:
The SBIR and STTR Phase I contracts last for 6 months with a maximum funding of $125,000, and Phase II contracts last for 24 months with a maximum funding of $750,000 - $1.5 million.
Opportunity for Continued Technology Development Post-Phase II:
The NASA SBIR/STTR Program currently has in place two initiatives for supporting its small business partners past the basic Phase I and Phase II elements of the program that emphasize opportunities for commercialization. Specifically, the NASA SBIR/STTR Program has the Phase II Enhancement (Phase II-E) and Phase II eXpanded (Phase II-X) contract options.
Please review the links below to obtain more information on the SBIR/STTR programs.
Provides an overview of the SBIR and STTR programs as implemented by NASA
Provides access to the annual SBIR/STTR Solicitations containing detailed information on the program eligibility requirements, proposal instructions and research topics and subtopics
Schedule and links for the SBIR/STTR solicitations and selection announcements
Federal and non-Federal sources of assistance for small business
Search our complete archive of awarded project abstracts to learn about what NASA has funded
Still have questions? Visit the program FAQs
","parentProgram":{"ableToSelect":false,"isActive":true,"description":"Catalyst is a portfolio of early stage programs that specialize in different innovation constituencies and mechanisms to push the state of the art in aerospace technology development","programId":92327,"responsibleMd":{"canUserEdit":false,"locationEdit":false,"organizationRolePretty":"","organizationTypePretty":""},"title":"Catalyst","acronymOrTitle":"Catalyst"},"parentProgramId":92327,"programId":73,"responsibleMd":{"organizationId":4875,"organizationName":"Space Technology Mission Directorate","acronym":"STMD","organizationType":"NASA_Mission_Directorate","canUserEdit":false,"locationEdit":false,"organizationRolePretty":"","organizationTypePretty":"NASA Mission Directorate"},"responsibleMdOffice":4875,"stockImageFileId":36648,"title":"Small Business Innovation Research/Small Business Tech Transfer","acronymOrTitle":"SBIR/STTR"},"description":"This SBIR Phase II proposal requests support for Alphacore, Inc. to design and characterize a 24 Gsps (gigasamples per second), wide input bandwidth (40 GHz), 6-bit (5.0 effective number of bits, ENOB), low-power (700 mW), and low-cost analog-to-digital converter (ADC) for use in a wide range of NASA's microwave sensor remote sensing applications. The ADC does not employ time-interleaving and provides a very wide spur free input bandwidth making it more suitable to NASA's remote sensing missions and a variety of radio astronomy applications than any other ADC available. In addition, the ADC will be radiation hard (>300krad) and thus suitable for use on-board space missions. A key innovation in Alphacore's approach to the ADC design is that we have considered how the ADC will be used in a system; a custom designed digital back-end implements digital data de-multiplexing and signal conditioning to allow seamless integration with commercially available, high-end, field programmable gate arrays (FPGA) that are the main building blocks of modern scientific spectrometers and interferometers. Alphacore's ADC provides these improvements at much lower power and lower cost than existing commercial ADCs that use off-chip components to provide these features. Alphacore's design takes advantage of the latest low-power, high-speed digital CMOS processes, resulting in ADC power consumption that is less than 1/8 of the power consumption of competitor ADCs. The proposed ADC employs an innovative topology with high-bandwidth front-end sampling circuit combined with an interpolated flash-type ADC and encoder circuitry that simplifies FPGA interfacing. All the needed clock signals are generated from a low-cost 100MHz crystal clock reference with a low-jitter (<200fs), radiation-tolerant on-chip PLL.
","benefits":"Some of the currently planned missions that benefit from Alphacore's ADC are listed below. The Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) is a 2.7 meter airborne telescope that includes multiple spectrometers covering a broad range of wavelengths. Its Heterodyne Instrument requires 64 high-bandwidth ADCs, similar to the Alphacore ADC. Global Atmospheric Composition Mission (GACM) has passive and active remote sensing instruments in low Earth orbit (LEO) including a UV spectrometer, an IR spectrometer, and a scanning Microwave limb sounder (SMLS). Alphacore's ADC that has 24GSps sampling rate, 40Ghz bandwidth and is radiation hard meets the requirements of these instruments. Compact Adaptable Microwave Limb Sounder (CAMLS) is a collection of instruments, scalable for use in balloons, aircraft and eventually in space. It is a follow-on mission for GACM, and requires digital spectrometers to cover 40 GHz of bandwidth. Six high-bandwidth (and rad-hard) ADCs are needed. Alphacore's ADC is an excellent match to this application. Airborne Scanning Microwave Limb Sounder (A-SMLS) instrument requires seven high bandwidth ADCs for analysis over the spectral range from 225 to 234 GHz. Other NASA missions that can benefit from Alphacore's ADC are TSSM, CCAT, JUICE, MARVEL and VESPER.
In addition to NASA's remote sensing applications Alphacore's ADC is a perfect match to a wide range of radio astronomy applications. Alphacore received several letters of support form the international radio astronomy community to go with this application. The features that make it an exceptional match to the requirements of international large-scale radio astronomy experiments are: seamless interfacing to FPGAs, single core design instead of time-interleaved one, very high sampling rate and bandwidth, easy clocking with an on-chip PLL, low power dissipation and low cost. The ADC also has wide commercial applicability in networking (coherent receivers, network modules), communications (software-defined radio), test equipment (high-speed digital oscilloscopes), radar and electronic warfare (EW) devices. The radiation hardness makes it suitable for commercial and defense sector space applications.