A packaged 3 GHz timing interface unit for a laser altimeter system

Author

Jani, D.B. ; Chang, C.E. ; Wang, K.-C.

Author_Institution

Sci. Center, Rockwell Int. Corp., Thousand Oaks, CA, USA

fYear

1997

fDate

12-15 Oct. 1997

Firstpage

179

Lastpage

182

Abstract

A Timing Interface Unit (TIU) integrated circuit is implemented in a Ft=45 GHz (Ft) AlGaAs/GaAs HBT process. The TIU was designed for a satellite based laser altimeter system with vertical resolution of 5 cms. The TIU performs two functions: (1) generate coarse count for the time-of-flight of the laser pulse; (2) retiming the return pulse with the clock for the return pulse digitizer and generate the return acknowledge. The TIU has 27-bit ripple counter with synchronous operation up to 5 GHz. The packaged IC was tested up to 3 GHz clock rates and 5 GHz on-wafer testing. The chip dissipates 1.3 W. The TIU IC has been integrated into a prototype data acquisition system developed for laser altimetry.

Keywords

III-V semiconductors; aluminium compounds; bipolar integrated circuits; counting circuits; data acquisition; gallium arsenide; height measurement; heterojunction bipolar transistors; integrated circuit packaging; measurement by laser beam; timing circuits; 1.3 W; 27 bit; 3 GHz; 5 cm; AlGaAs-GaAs; AlGaAs/GaAs HBT IC; data acquisition system; digitizer; laser pulse time-of-flight; packaged integrated circuit; return acknowledge; ripple counter; satellite based laser altimeter; synchronous operation; timing interface unit; Clocks; Collision mitigation; Gallium arsenide; Heterojunction bipolar transistors; Integrated circuit packaging; Integrated circuit testing; Optical design; Optical pulse generation; Satellites; Timing;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Gallium Arsenide Integrated Circuit (GaAs IC) Symposium, 1997. Technical Digest 1997., 19th Annual

Conference_Location

Anaheim, CA, USA

ISSN

1064-7775

Print_ISBN

0-7803-4083-3

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/GAAS.1997.628264

Filename

628264