Ultra High Speed Digitizer with Integrated Synchronized Clock Source and Rad Hard SPI

To enhance the design of backend spectrometers included in NASA’s microwave radiometers, ADSANTEC will develop a wide bandwidth (>30 Ghz) radiation-hard digitizer with more than 6 effective bit resolution utilizing a space qualified US located semiconductor foundry. The scalable digitizer with a sampling rate up to 25 Gs/s will be able to directly interface to space-qualified Xilinx Versal FPGAs using a patented FPGA compatible reverse pseudo-synchronization algorithm and rad hard SPI control interface. The proposed FPGA interface integrates the proprietary synchronization protocol that minimizes the data transmission overhead. The utilization of advanced a wide temperature range (up to -200 Degree C) SiGe 9 HP technology developed by IBM will help to achieve the wide temperature range of operation and low power consumption of the digitizer, which will incorporate internal already proven extremely low noise clock source. The company’s proprietary space qualified packaging will enable fabrication and testing of the prototype to TRL 8 by the end of Phase II. The developed digitizer will support the advanced requirements of NASA’s microwave radiometers development, next Generation of Laser Communication Relay Demonstration program, DoD’s program for GPS Block IIIF payload development, and numerous worldwide radio astronomy programs such as SKA and ALMA. ADSANTEC offers more than 200 space qua Application Specific Integrated Circuits including ADC ASNT 7113 A developed during NASA SBIR Program in 2012 and commercially available as a space qualified ASIC.

The proposed approach will revolutionize the future radar and radiometer systems required for multiple Earth and planetary science applications. Spectrometer back ends for microwave radiometers will specifically benefit from the features of the new ADC. The designed ADC will be easy to integrate into high performance measurement systems due to the simple output interface compactable with RT FPGA transceivers.

The developed product will also be useful for the next generation of laser satellite communication and multi-sensor flight control systems, as well as for many commercial application including: wireless ground stations, long-haul fiber optic communication, ultra-high-speed measurement instrumentation, space-based radar, CDROM testing systems, and a variety of other applications.

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