Streaming Time-To-Digital Converters

This is a Notice of Proposed Contract Action under FAR Part 12 Acquisition of Commercial Products and Commercial Services, and FAR Part 13 Simplified Acquisition Procedures.  This notice is for information only; a solicitation will not be issued. THIS IS NOT A REQUEST FOR QUOTATION. No contract will be awarded on the basis of offers received in response to this notice. The associated North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) code is 334515 (Instrument Manufacturing for Measuring and Testing Electricity and Electrical Signals) with a small business size standard of 750 employees.
 

The Government requires the procurement of three (3) streaming time-to-digital converters, and intends to negotiate a sole-source award for this requirement with Swabian Instruments USA, Inc., 1127 Harrison Ave Ste F, Boston, MA 02119. Relevant Swabian product descriptions and technical specifications for the required time-to-digital converters are as follows:

Item 1 - Time Tagger X System & Software, qty. 1

Device Technical Specifications:

- Timing Resolution (RMS Jitter): 2 ps
- Input channels: 4 (up to 18)
- Dead Time: 1.5 ns
- Recommended Input Signal Range: +/- 1.5 V
- Maximum Input Signal Range: +/- 3 V
- Trigger Level range: +/- 0.75 V
- Data Transfer Rate: 70M (PC) or 300M (FPGA link) tags/s
- Data Interface: USB 3.0 or SFP+

Item 2 - Time Tagger Ultra Performance System & Software, qty. 2

Device Technical Specifications:

- Timing Resolution (RMS Jitter): 8 ps
- Input channels: 4 (up to 18)
- Dead Time: 2.1 ns
- Recommended Input Signal Range: +/- 3 V
- Maximum Input Signal Range: +/- 5 V
- Trigger Level range: +/- 2.5 V
- Data Transfer Rate: 80M tags/s
- Data Interface: USB 3.0

The Government has determined that other companies’ products and services do not meet or cannot be modified to meet the Government’s needs.  The Government currently owns and is actively using multiple Swabian Instruments branded Time Tagger X streaming time-to-digital converters in its quantum network testbeds.  As experiments have increased in scale and complexity, the need for additional time-to-digital converters has emerged.  In an effort to maximize uniformity and compatibility within the measurement infrastructure, use of a common brand of time-to-digital converters is imperative.  Moreover, RITQ personnel have already dedicated months of time toward building custom control software to integrate the Swabian branded systems into larger experiments.  Introduction of an alternate brand of streaming time-to-digital converter at this point would result in substantial duplication of effort in terms of developing a new software interface and connecting it to existing experiments.  Interchanges with Swabian Instruments have yielded that they do not maintain a network of resellers for their products and are therefore the sole-source provider of the required systems.  For these reasons, the Government has determined Swabian Instruments to be the sole-source provider of the required streaming time-to-digital converters.

This is a notice of proposed contract action and not a request for competitive proposals; however, all responsible sources may submit a capability statement or proposal, which shall be considered by the agency. All inquiries should be sent by email to richard.childres@us.af.mil. Responses must be submitted by the date/time listed on the notice. Any response to this notice must show clear and convincing evidence that competition would be advantageous to the Government in future procurements.

Responses received will be evaluated; however, a determination by the Government not to compete the proposed procurement based upon responses to this notice is solely within the discretion of the Government. The Government anticipates an award date on or before 15 February 2025.

A Sole Source Justification will be attached to the subsequent Notice of Award in accordance with applicable regulation.