Description: Spectrometers currently employed or under development by NASA are based on a printed circuit board (PCB) including field programmable arrays (FPGAs) and a number of other discrete components. An application specific integrated circuit (ASIC) based spectrometer offers a great reduction in weight, volume and power consumption compared to the FPGA/PCB based implementation. This proposal aims to develop a radiation-hardened (RH) low-power (LP) poly-phase spectrometer (PPS) ASIC. The proposed RH LP PPS ASIC aims to achieve a 4GHz bandwidth and 214 (16384) frequency bins. In order to implement the required functionality and meet the specifications while consuming below 2.5W of power, the proposed ASIC will include a state-of-the-art ADC, a demultiplexer, a poly-phase filter bank, a windowing function, a fast-Fourier-transform core, a fast-Fourier-data analysis block, a data readout, a digital control unit and testing features. Tolerance to at least 4Mrads of total ionizing dose (TID) radiation and immunity to the single event effects (SEEs) will be achieved by employing radiation hardening by design, by layout, and by system techniques and also by applying an ultra-thin gate oxide technology for implementation. Low power consumption will be achieved by employing special multiplier-less-accumulators and multiplier-less-"butterflies". The power consumption will be further reduced by switching off the unused ASIC's blocks, down rating the clock frequency, eliminating unnecessary buffering and applying the 28nm CMOS technology. Phase I work will provide the proof of feasibility of implementing the proposed spectrometer ASIC. Phase II will result in the silicon proven ASIC's prototypes ready for commercialization in Phase III.

Benefits: The proposed spectrometer ASIC will greatly reduce the size, complexity, power consumption and increase reliability of spectrometer instruments. These spectrometers are required for current and future space borne and airborne NASA's passive remote sensing instruments for exploration of the cosmic microwave background, the Earth's atmosphere and its surface. Specific missions include: A-SLMS, CAMEO, GACM, GeoSTAR, HyspIRI and GEO-CAPE. In addition, the proposed ASIC can find application in Earth based radio telescopes used for radio astronomy.

In addition to its primary application in the NASA's spectrometer systems, the proposed ASIC will be targeting applications in commercial, military and other scientific exploration systems which require small size, low power, radiation hardened spectrometers. Commercial and military applications include spectrometers employed on satellites, aircraft and air balloons for remote sensing and surveillance to process the data from synthetic aperture radars, sonars, or visible light/infrared/UV image detectors. For applications of Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), space, airborne and ground based remote sensing instruments require high precision spectrometers for temperature, water vapor, pollutant, ozone and other exploration.