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ISSUE DATE: JUNE/JULY 2010 DEFENSE ELECTRONICS SUPPLEMENT | |
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June/July 2010 Defense Electronics Supplement - In This Issue [Cover Story] OpenVPX Speeds Time To Market VME is one of the oldest commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) buses still being designed into new military systems. At one time, it offered the industry’s fastest backplane bus. Its 320-MB/s speed was impressive when the format was first introduced in 1997. But today, the parallel VME bus has been superceded by high-speed serial interfaces like Serial RapidIO and Gigabit Ethernet. For military systems designers, high-speed bus options are many, but the... — Bill Wong [News] Lasers Mark Half Century Fi fty years ago, American physicist Theodore Maiman, then working at Hughes Aircra Co., invented the first laser based on ruby lasing medium. The principle was first described by Albert Einstein in 1917, but it wasn’t realized until 1960 when Maiman stimulated a ruby rod by means of high-energy flashes of light. Today, Hughes is part of Raytheon Company, but the work on lasers continues, with... — Jack Browne [News] CERDEC Demonstration Shows Networking Prowess Advanced networking technologies are critical to present and future military requirements. To show progress of two of its key network technologies, the Communications- Electronics Research, Development and Engineering Center (CERDEC), part of the US Army’s Research, Development, and Engineering Command (RDECOM), held a demonstration of its Virtual Ad hoc Network (VAN) and Tactical Information Technologies for Assured Network (TITAN) Operations ... — Jack Browne [Editorial] Mixing The Old And The New In various works of science fiction and, to the layman, work conducted in military research laboratories is o ften no diff erent than science fiction— the history of a species is oft en summarized in two great texts, one called “the old” and one called “the new.” The two categories can also be applied to many military programs and their use of electronics. Military systems rely on proven (old) technologies as much as they do on emerging (new)... — Jack Browne [News Shorts] News Shorts Curtiss-Wright Seeks Software From Gedae Curtiss-Wright Controls Embedded Computing (CWCEC), a business group of Curtiss-Wright Controls, announced a partnership for joint software development for its CHAMP VPX digitalsignal- processing (DSP) engines with Gedae, Inc.. Gedae software will allow system developers to quickly create solutions based on nextgeneration ... — Jack Browne [Contracts] Contracts DARPA Eyes UCLA For MEMS Research The Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science of the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) has been awarded $5.5 million from the United States Department of Defense’s central research and development agency to advance microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) technology for use in defense systems. The four-and-a-halfyear grant from the Defense Advanced Research Project... — Jack Browne [Design & Technology] Apply An AWG For Power Design Arbitrary waveform generators (AWGs) are invaluable tools for creating a wide array of signals for testing RF and power electronic circuits. Modern AWGs are typically based on direct digital synthesizer (DDS) technology to convert digital input words into high-speed output waveforms by means of a high-resolution digitalto- analog converter (DAC). A basic AWG can provide a variety of standard waveforms, including pulse, square, ramp, triangle, and sine-wave... — Steven M. Sandler [Design & Technology] SAW Oscillators Fly On Airborne Radars Surface-acoustic-wave (SAW) oscillators have been available for some time as high-quality reference sources in high-frequency systems, including in groundbased radar and test and measurement equipment. They are capable of relatively high fundamental frequencies compared to crystal reference oscillators with excellent spectral purity in terms of phase noise, spurious content, and harmonics. For airborne applications, the new ULN line of SAW... — Michel Chomiki [Design & Technology] Military-Grade LDOs Battle Harsh Realms Initiatives to incorporate more commercial-o -the-shelf (COTS) components into military systems may result in cost reductions, but reduced reliability may be the real price. e -40 to +85°C commercial component temperature range, or even the extended industrial -40 to +125°C temperature range, may not be adequate for the most demanding applications. Because of the increased demands of military systems operating in hostile environmental conditions, ... — Steve Knoth [Product Feature] Fast 12-b ADCs Reshape SDRs Software-defined-radio (SDR) architectures are not only commonplace in modern tactical radio designs they also form the basis for many newer test systems, especially those that must perform measurements across a range of communications standards. In spite of the versatility from digital signal processing, SDRs still rely on several stages of analog/microwave front-end processing. Yet, with the availability of the ADC12D1x00 family of high-speed... — Jack Browne [Product Feature] GaN PAs Drive EW, ECM Systems Gallium nitride (GaN) semiconductor material, considered promising but still developmental just a few years ago, is now a favored RF power amplifier technology for many commercial and defense systems. The substrate’s high power density and efficiency coupled with its capability to cover broad bandwidths at high frequencies makes it the de factor choice for power amplifiers employed in new electronic warfare (EW), electronic countermeasures (ECM), ... — Vincent LaRose [Product Feature] Trombones Tune Delays To 18 GHz Delay lines are simple in concept but difficult to implement with precision and repeatability, especially over the broad frequency range needed for electronicwarfare (EW) and radar applications. But Colby Instruments has developed a patented electromechanical trombone mechanism that not only provides broad bandwidth and picosecond delay resolution, but makes delay adjustments over time and... — Jack Browne [Product Feature] Speedy Synthesizer Spans 0.2 To 20.0 GHz Impressive for its combination of switching speed and low phase noise, the first compact QuickSyn frequency synthesizer from Phase Matrix, introduced in late 2008, was nonetheless limited to applications through 10 GHz. In response to the needs of broadband coverage for radar and electronic-warfare (EW) applications, the company has released its latest version of the innovative signal source with... — Jack Browne [Product Feature] Simulator Serves 85-MHz Channels Communications links often involve mobile transmitters or receivers, as in the case of satellite communications (satcom) systems and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). Testing such communications links under realistic conditions involves a signal simulator rather than a conventional signal generator. One such signal simulator, the Telemetrix 400 Channel Simulator (T400CS) from RT Logic, was recently enhanced... — Jack Browne [Products] Products SPDT Switch Runs DC To 18 GHz Model SEM02012 is a failsafe singlepole, double-throw (SPDT) switch from Narda Microwave-East for applications from DC to 18 GHz. It measures just 1.34 x 1.5 x 0.5 in. It exhibits maximum insertion loss of 0.5 dB with minimum isolation of 60 dB. The VSWR is less than 1.50:1 across the full frequency range. The switch is supplied with female SMA connectors and is powered by 275 mA at +12... — Jack Browne |
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