SBIR Phase I: A 2GHz Bandwidth Cross-Correlator Chip for Interferometry

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This Phase I Small Business Innovation Research project aims to research, develop, and demonstrate experimentally a novel cross-correlator chip and a high-speed multi-chip module package, the basic building blocks of an expandable cross-correlator system, with a frequency bandwidths of 2 GHz and priced at one tenth of the cost of existing cross-correlator systems with the same bandwidth. To achieve the stated goal, no single conventional technical approach could provide a cross-correlator chip operating at such high frequency bandwidth and at such a low cost -- only by synergistically combining innovative parallel architecture, bit-systolic arrays, novel digital circuit techniques, and deep sub-micron CMOS fabrication technologies can this unprecedented level of performance-to-cost ratio be obtained. The correlator chip and the high-speed multi-chip module to be developed in this project, if successfully realized, will have the advantage of enabling the implementation of expandable cross-correlator systems that cost 10 to 20 times less than comparable systems envisioned for large interferometer arrays operating at millimeter andsub-millimeter wavelengths.The family of state of the art cross-correlator chips and multi-chip modules produced in this project will have applications in radio astronomy, earth science, geodesy and surveillance.