HIDEC RECEIVES BIG MONEY FOR SMALL PRODUCTS

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. - The U of A High Density Electronics Center (HiDEC) received more than $2 million in funding for its tunable filter and "teraflop in a box" projects this week.

"Systems like these are very elaborate and difficult to build," explained HiDEC director Len Schaper. "They can be modeled in the computer, but in the end, they have to be built. We are designing and building the prototypes for highly sophisticated devices."

The tunable filter is funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and builds on HiDEC’s earlier work with superconductors. It can be used to create communication systems with very long range and high sensitivity that can’t be jammed.

Because the tunable filter must be very accurate, without signal loss and extremely small, it requires the use of superconducting materials. A key component is a "toractor" that oscillates on a carbon fiber less than half the width of a human hair.

"Technically, this is as difficult as anything that we have done," said Schaper. "While it has applications for the military, it can also have significant impact on our daily lives. Imagine getting rid of half of the cell phone towers. A tunable filter could double the range of cell phone base stations, greatly reducing the need for unsightly towers."

The tunable filter project has been underway for 18 months and is nearing the half-way point, according to HiDEC project specialist Doug Wilde. Current funding stands at $1.8 million and is expected to reach $4.2 million by project completion.

In addition to the DARPA funding, HiDEC also received $1.45 million from Northrop-Grumman for the final phase of its "teraflop in a box" project. Total funding on this project is $2.6 million.

The "teraflop in a box" is a device capable of processing one teraflop per second (1,000,000,000,000 floating point operations) in only one cubic foot of space. Currently, processing that amount of data would take a system the size of a refrigerator or larger.

Creating a smaller device will allow it to be mobile and installed in places like airplanes, where space is limited, or the space shuttle and International Space Station, where both size and weight are critical.

"The teraflop in a box will allow processing of data in real time," Schaper explained. "For example, a pilot could have immediate access to images, rather than having to transmit the data for further processing elsewhere. It could greatly enhance the pilot’s ability to do the job safely and effectively. Basically, we’re building the world’s smallest supercomputer."

In addition to drawing heavily on HiDEC’s expertise in thermal management, the teraflop in a box project uses the low-temperature co-fired ceramics (LTCC) laboratory at HiDEC. The LTCC is the only laboratory of its kind in the United States.

The teraflop in a box contains modules with stacks of eight substrates. Each substrate contains 16 metal layers, 13 in LTCC silver and 3 in thin-film copper. Researchers will align the layers and punch 2,000 microscopic holes in each - more than 200,000 correctly aligned holes - to make interconnections so the part works.

"These projects are really an extension of all the work that HiDEC has done over the past 10 years," Schaper said. "You build on all you have learned to do something that has never been done before."