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We are very active in SBIR programs, which provide seed funding for new technology development. We are constantly seeking system integrator partnership for these programs.

Built In Test in a Ruggedized Transceiver
Built In Test in a Ruggedized Transciever   During the development and deployment of fiber optic systems, the fiber cable plant is susceptible to damage (especially at connectors).  We are addressing this problem with Built-in-Test features:
    Today: We have incorporated a method of optically measuring end-to-end link loss within the Phantom X20.  The average optical power transmitted and received is available for digital read-out.
    In Development: We are developing optical time domain reflectrometry (OTDR) capability within the transceiver.  This isolates the location of a fiber faults throughout the cable plant to less than 10 cm resolution.
(Navy Phase III — TPOC Mark Beranek, NAVAIR) 

Space Based Fiber Optic Components / Photonics Manufacturing    
The Photonics Manufacturing program creates a fabrication platform for technologies developed under UltraComm SBIR programs: built-in-test, radiation tolerant circuitry, hermitically sealed removable pigtail interface, and single channel board-to-board components.  The lead vehicle for this platform is a JSF-footprint compatible quad transceiver with a removable pigtail.
(Air Force Phase II SBIR - TPOC Keith Avery, AFRL)
 

Board to Board Optical Interconnects
    As high performance, stacked PCB systems adopt higher-data rate bus standards, such as PCI-Express, the stacked electrical connectors pose density, signal integrity and EMI issues. We are developing novel optical board-to-board and thru-board optical interconnects to solve these issues.
(Army Phase IIE SBIR— TPOC Michael Gerhold, ARL)

Multi-Channel DWDM Tunable Transmitter    
We are teamed with West Virginia High Technology Consortium to develop a multi-channel DWDM transmitter (MCTX) with eight individual data channels, each of which can be assigned a wavelength from the nine available defined by the 1550 nm C-Band ITU Grid (32-40).  Each channel of the transmitter operates at a data rate between 2.5 Gbps.  The goal is a robust package suitable for military aerospace applications.
(Navy Phase II SBIR— TPOC Brian McDermott, NAVAIR)
 

Wafer Bonding Technology for BiCMOS on Sapphire
  We identified a process for producing very high performance RF silicon circuitry in a manner that enables unprecedented levels of RF integration.  This program began with an investigation into a general wafer substrate substitution process for optimizing the substrate in silicon fabrication processes, called silicon-on-X (SOX), where X is a substrate material that optimizes the silicon circuitry for a target applications (high-power, thermal expansion coefficients, isolation, optical, etc.).  The near-term benefit of this technology is its application to BiCMOS RF circuitry. 
(DARPA Phase I SBIR— TPOC Michael Fritze, DARPA)


RF Photonics with Multi-Mode Devices    
We examined the use of commercial 850 nm Vertical Cavity Surface Emitting Lasers (VCSEL) and multimode optical fiber for analog RF communication applications.  We found phase noise performance better than -120 dBc/Hz in the frequency range from 100 MHz to 5 GHz (10 kHz offset).  This performance meets the needs of a wide range of RF photonic applications, offering extreme isolation, compact size, low power consumption, and flexible cabling.  See white paper or contact us for more information.
(Air Force Phase I SBIR— TPOC Lt. Matthew White, WPAFRL)
 

Embedded Equalizers for High Speed Metallic Interconnect
  We developed a technology to cost-effectively extend the rate/reach/density performance of FR-4 PWB technology far beyond the current state of the art.  The maxim achievable lengths of a board interconnect is inversely proportional to the data rate.  Current industry efforts to integrate equalizers at the IC level will not overcome this trend.   Next-generation systems will require 10’s of ICs having 1000’s of high-speed (>10 Gbps) I/O.  Under these conditions, high frequency attenuation will limit the maximum length of a trace to just a few inches, even with the use of equalization.  Our solution is to embed passive equalization and active repeater functionality within the PWB core.     
(DARPA Phase II SBIR— TPOC Michael Fritze, DARPA)


 
 
 
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