Integrated Circuit Kit and Consultation

National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)
Acquisition Management Division, Boulder, CO

Sources Sought for Commercial Item Purchase - Integrated Circuit Kit and Consultation

The National Institutes of Standards and Technology's (NIST's) High Speed Measurement Group wishes to procure additional sets of integrated circuits to be used in the development at NIST of a millimeter-wave large-signal network analyzer (LSNA). The circuits will be modifications of NIST's first design submissions to Teledyne Scientific. They will be based on InP HBT transistors fabricated at Teledyne and shall have the capability of producing power amplification from 25GHz up to 650GHz, mixers, phase-locked loops, dynamic frequency dividers, and oscillators.

The maximum breakdown voltage Collector-Emitter (VCE) must be equal or higher than 3.5 V. The InP HBT circuits shall have been demonstrated to generate power amplifiers with 0.8 mW of output power at 585 GHz and 20 dB of small signal gain at 650 GHz with no more than 10 stages. The ft of the transistor shall be at least 520 GHz and the fmax of the transistor shall be at least 1.1 THz.

Specifications

General: The circuits will be based on InP HBT transistors capable of producing
power amplifiers with 0.5 mW of output power at 585 GHz and 20 dB of small
signal gain at 650 GHz, mixers, phase-locked loops, dynamic frequency
dividers, and oscillators. The substrate is semi-insulating InP with a 100 orientation
or other suitable electro-optic material, and should be polished on the back side to
allow electro-optic sampling through the back of the substrate. The back of the
substrate should also be clean and suitable for deposition of anti-reflective
coatings at NIST. It must be possible to form coplanar waveguide (CPW)
transmission lines on the top surface of the substrate and to remove semi-
conducting epitaxy (epi) layers under the CPW to reduce substrate losses in the CPW. The technology must also support thin-film microstrip transmission lines on the top surface in BCB or similar low-loss low-dielectric-constant insulators suitable for fabricating broadband combiners and other passive microstrip circuitry that operate up to 650 GHz. The conductors on the top surface of the wafer must be robust enough to allow wire bonding, on-wafer probing, and solder connections. New designs resulting from this effort will remain confidential property of NIST.

Item 1. Design kit and consultation.
Vendor will provide circuit libraries to NIST with a complete set of transistor designs, electrical models and corresponding layouts.

If the vendor technology is different than the130 nm and 250 nm InP HBT technology offered by Teledyne Scientific and previously used at NIST, NIST will provide the vendor with the previous NIST designs, and provide guidance on the circuit functionality and expected performance. The vendor will be responsible for adjusting NIST designs to meet the NIST-required performance, and then transferring the updated designs into their technology process. The existing NIST circuits subject to modification are high frequency power amplifiers, active load-pull circuitry, high frequency comb generators, high-frequency signal sources and electro-optic sampling components required in the construction of a millimeter-wave LSNA and high-frequency comb generators. Vendor will provide NIST with their corresponding designs, layouts and electrical models. Models and layouts will be applicable to circuit designs spanning the frequency range of 25 GHz to 650 GHz targeted here in the newer 130 nm node from Teledyne Scientific. Any design kits and design layouts will be provided in the Keysight Advanced Design System.

Item 2. Integrated circuit fabrication.
Vendor will fabricate integrated circuits as designed by NIST with design assistance from the vendor using their standard foundry technology, and deliver approximately 20 unpackaged integrated-circuit chips from each fabrication run to NIST. The anticipated size of the integrated-circuit chips will be approximately 6 mm2. If the vendor provides an alternative technology to the Teledyne Scientific technology previously used at NIST, the translated test structures will have to provide equal or better performance than simulated.

This announcement is not a Request for Proposals (RFP) and does not commit the Government to award a contract now or in the future. No solicitation is available at this time. The purpose of this synopsis is to identify small businesses with the requisite qualifications to meet the requirements of the item stated herein. After results of this market research are obtained and analyzed and compared with NIST's minimum requirement (see Technical Specifications above), NIST may conduct a small business set-aside competitive procurement and subsequently award a contract. If at least two qualified small businesses are identified during this market research stage, then this acquisition will be solicited as a small business set aside. NIST is seeking responses from all responsible businesses, including small business sources (SB, SDB, WOSB, HUBZone, SDVOSB and VOSB). This requirement is assigned a NAICS code of 334413 (Semiconductor and Related Device Manufacturing), size standard 1250.

The specific purpose of this Sources Sought Announcement is to determine if there are small businesses, within the parameters identified above, that can provide the product identified.

Interested small business organizations that believe they can meet the requirement should submit electronic copies of their capability statement. Please limit responses to three (3) pages or less. Responses should include the following information:
1. Name of company that will provide product.
2. Name of company that will manufacture the product.
3. Spec sheets and examples of products that meet the specifications.
4. Typical lead time to deliver the product after receipt of order.
5. Any other relevant information that is not listed above which the Government should consider in developing our minimum specifications and finalizing our market research.

Any proprietary information should be clearly marked. The written capability statement should be received by the Contract Specialist no later than 2:00 pm MST Monday, August 6, 2018. The capability statement shall identify the business status of the organization.

Only electronic statements will be accepted. Faxes will not be accepted. Send emails and any inquiries to Michael Fredericks, Contracting Officer, at michael.fredericks@nist.gov.

Place of Contract Performance:
Contractor's facility

.