DURIP Upgrading the Signal Integrity Laboratory to Allow Research and Education for the Next Generation of High-Speed Connectivity
Abstract
Publicly Releasable Project Summary/Abstract This proposal addresses important research and educational needs for the Navy, i.e., ensuring critical and reliable high-speed connectivity across multiple platforms and applications. Technological advancements towardshigh-speed links have escalated data rates up to 800 Gb/s, in electrical and optical channels [1-5]. This is due to the increasing applications in artificial intelligence, autonomous vehicles, internet of things (IoT), wearables, 5G/6G, machine-to-machine communication, and other data-demanding applications [1-2], that are critical for the national needs. The building blocks for the above applications can be broadly listed as: single-chip and multi-chip integration, integrated photonics and power electronics, MEMS and sensor integration, as well as analog and mixed signals [6-10]. These different blocks have to be integrated into PCBs with connectors. Many of these blocks will be working above 50GHz range, therefore, maintaining signal integrity at such high-speed rates is very difficult, since effects of jitter, noise, and crosstalk become significant. In the worst-case scenario, the communication link may fail even if all the components meet the designed requirements. For example, in a typical military communication channel, reliabilityand agility in Electronic Warfare [11-12] are paramount; hence, maintaining signal integrity across this communication link is critical. The proposers founded the Center for Signal Integrity (SI), at Penn State Harrisburg (PSH, where through the synergy of PSH, and industry and funding agencies, the Center#s goals are aligning its cutting-edge research with connector companies, to integrate signal integrity into the Electrical Engineering curriculum, and to develop continuing education courses to train the workforce. In addition, PSH has been a leading provider of students (over fifty) with SI skills to the industry. Since high-speed testing equipment is very expensive,we have built the SI lab mainly through external grants. Most of the high-end equipment is now more than 8 yearsold and with the new speeds described above, the equipment is quickly becoming obsolete; therefore, the need for the upgrade. The proposers will use the requested equipment to train undergraduate/graduate students on the latest signal/power integrity (PI) technology and conduct and collaborate in SI/PI research. The research to be enabled is multi-purpose as the multi-campus nature of Penn State University. At the Center for SI, three research streams are currently being pursued: Humidity and Temperature effects in high-speed channels, prediction of channel operation margin (COM) using deep learning networks (DLN) and causality of high-speed channelsusing digital signal processing (DSP) techniques. The requested equipment will be used to enhance research in the above areas as well as for the below areas with researchers at Pennsylvania State University Park. Characterization of Optimal Tri-controllable Absorbers, and Bi-controllable and Tri-controllable Bandstop Filters. Dr. Akhlesh Lakhtakia. 5G/6G/Next-G characterization of impulse response of indoor and outdoor environments, automotive radar system design and testing, high-resolution millimeter-wave (mm-wave) radar system design and testing, mm-wave propagation studies through obscurants such as fog and smoke, terahertz imaging system design and testing, and mm-wave integrated circuit fabrication and testing. Dr. Ram Narayanan.
Document Details
- Document Type
- DoD Grant Award
- Publication Date
- Nov 09, 2024
- Source ID
- N000142412613
Entities
People
- Aldo Morales
Organizations
- Office of Naval Research
- Pennsylvania State University
- United States Navy