SWaP-C Efficient High-Resolution High-Speed Digitizer and Processor

Prixarc proposes to develop and commercialize an efficient, fast, and low size, weight, power, and cost (SWaP-C) digitizer and processor system for use with fast photodetectors. High-speed data converters are critical in building a fast and a reliable photon detector in a small form factor. The specific goal is to design an analog to digital converter (ADC) with sampling rate of 10 Giga samples per second (GSPS), 14-bit resolution, and power consumption below 1 W. While considering both the technical design challenges and commercial market opportunities for our products, we propose to implement two prototype digitizer and processor systems that are both based on time-interleaved architecture with timing skew calibration. Specifically, our designs would be based on (i) interleaving 2 high-speed ADC channels each having 14-bit resolution and sampling rate of 5 GSPS using the Xilinx ZCU208 system and (ii) interleaving 4 high-speed ADC channels each having 14-bit resolution and 2.5 GSPS sampling rate, wherein each ADC will use current reuse technology implemented in a custom application specific integrated circuit (ASIC). This project seeks to bridge the gap between current digitizers and fast oscilloscope hardware with flexible software interface controls for rapid data collection, manipulation, and analysis. This SBIR project would thus help to accelerate development of military and DoD-centric systems among other benefits including reducing technical risks and product costs.