High-speed, High-accuracy and Radiation-Hardened (Rad-Hard) Analog-to-Digital converter (ADC) in CMOS (Complementary Metal-Oxide Semiconductor) technology

Project Information

3H-ADC

Grant agreement ID: 854520

DOI

10.3030/854520

Project closed

EC signature date 4 February 2019

Start date 1 March 2019

End date 31 July 2019

Funded under

• INDUSTRIAL LEADERSHIP - Innovation In SMEs

Total cost

€ 71 429,00

EU contribution

€ 50 000,00

Coordinated by

SPACE SUBMICRON ELECTRONIC SL
Spain

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - 3H-ADC (High-speed, High-accuracy and Radiation-Hardened (Rad-Hard) Analog-to-Digital converter (ADC) in CMOS (Complementary Metal-Oxide Semiconductor) technology)

Reporting period: 2019-03-01 to 2019-07-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

Industries that require highly reliable applications, such as aerospace, automotive and scientific-medical applications, are currently demanding and evolving for faster, more accurate, energy-efficient integrated circuits with a higher level of integration, in the same direction that the consumer market has been moving for decades. 2SE has detected a business opportunity in these fields that require high performance and high technical qualification data converters. While data converters for commercial applications are numerous, those others required in specific applications for critical industries, such as our target markets are scarce. These industries’ systems must operate in harsh environments, whose extreme conditions demand high-qualified components. North American suppliers dominate this segment, but their highest qualified products are subjected to ITAR (“International Traffic in Arms Regulation”) limitations. This fact creates a problem of technological dependence for European firms, which hampers their competitiveness: specific applications’ developers or integrators, and manufacturers of electronic equipment must face the scarcity of a qualified offer, which leads to an increase in their manufacturing costs and to longer delivery times to their customers.
2SE plans to tackle the market with a family of high-speed, high-resolution data converters designed to work in extreme conditions and hardened against radiation. Our Analog-to-Digital Converter (ADC) 2SE-ADC14150 is one of components of this family, being the best-performing, most cost-efficient ITAR-free product in the segment. The main competitive advantages of these products are their high performance when compared to existing solutions on the market, the power efficiency, cost and no export-restrictions.
This feasibility study’s objectives are as follows:
The commercial objective is to confirm the existence of the space market opportunity and also explore new markets that can be addressed by the 2SE Analog-to-Digital Converter.
The main technical objective is to design a plan to bring the prototype 2SE-ADC14150 from TRL6 to TRL9 and to reach the pre-industrialization stage of the device. The main tasks to develop are test, qualification and preparation of the production chain of the 2SE-ADC14150
The business objective is to assess the funding and other resources, and the marketing and communication plans that ensure the feasibility of the project and maximize its economic impact in the company.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

2SE has performed a throughout feasibility study of the 2SE-ADC14150 data converter future commercialization. The analysis has focused on three activities, which are to update our preliminary market study, to develop the technical workplan to get the product from the current prototype stage to the pre-industrialization, and to refine our business idea through the development of a complete Business Plan.
The market study update has been focused on two points. Firstly, to update the market data of our previous study to confirm the forecasts and the opportunity in the space segment. Secondly, to explore new segments that are currently farther from our direct business network influence, the most important are aeronautic, automotive and medical instrumentation. These new fields of application require a level of qualification less demanding, the level of competence is higher and profit margins will be tighter, although the volume of production will be higher. The exploration shows that a good opportunity exists in these markets, but to respond to this opportunity it is necessary to scale up the production chain in order to reduce the cost of the ADC manufacturing.
The technical workplan developed by 2SE during these 5 months details the activities to optimize the ADC performance, test the ADC integrated in the customer application, to qualify the prototype with different level of requirements and to prepare the production chain. The workplan includes work packages, resources, new staff, costs, time schedule, KPI and risk analysis.
2SE has finally refined the initial Business plan. It details the financial prospects (structure of revenues, costs and margins, to detail the total budget), the Commercialisation, Marketing and Communication Plans. The analysis has paid special attention to funding needs assessment, concluding an Accelerator Instrument will be needed to develop our project’s next stages.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

The feasibility study presents a detailed plan to qualify and produce an Analog-to-Digital converter for high-reliability applications in sectors such space, aeronautic, automobile or medical instrumentation. 2SE-ADC14150 is a high-speed, high-resolution converter whose features place it at the forefront of state-of-the-art ADC for high-reliability applications. The main advantages of the product compare with the in the high reliability space market are the on-chip self-calibration, the power efficiency, the reconfiguration capability to operate at several sample rates, the radiation hardness, the SoC design in CMOS technology , which makes our product the current ITAR-free ADC with the best performances at a competitive price in the market.
2SE has performed an economic study of the project to foresee the financial effect of the product commercialization. The financial projections show a very positive impact on the business development of 2SE. Concretely, it is foreseen that the product will generate only for the space market a turnover of 10M€ for the year 2025, year of consolidation in the market, with an Earnings Before Interest, Tax, Depreciation and Amortization (EBITDA) of 6.7M€.
Analysing the study developed during these last months, the conclusions about the impact of the 2SE-ADC14150 development and commercialization are:
• The 2SE-ADC14150 will strengthen the 2SE position in the space market niche and will also enable 2SE to access other interesting sectors like aeronautic, automotive, small-satellite, medicine, etc. The access to these markets is driven by new application fields, which have been appearing in the last decade where system designers need a higher level of quality and reliability than COTS (Commercial off-the-shelf) with a low-cost enough for wide use. Thus, the high-reliability markets are demanding a new line of IC products with a new qualification level for high reliability applications denoted by Enhanced Products. These product lines offer integrated circuits with enough quality and reliability for determined space and aeronautic applications (for instance, small satellites and the AQEC standard respectively) mitigating the risks that the avionics and space markets faces with COTS integrated circuits.
• The socio-economic impact generated by the 2SE-ADC14150 will be focused on the impulse of the growth of our company, making possible the expansion to other markets, the development of new product lines of the 2SE business roadmap and the consolidation of a high-skilled staff, which will be structured in the design, production and commercial department. In more general terms, we will also be positively impacting some of the most strategic European industries, by providing them with high-performance ITAR-free products at very competitive prices, and reducing the commercial dependence on non-EU suppliers.