Bit Error Radio Tester

The Compound Semiconductor Application (CSA) Catapult is aiming to provide a high-speed test capability to cope with continuous growth with data traffic caused by many developed high-speed devices in optical communications.

The CSA Catapult is looking to obtain a system solution to allow efficient, reliable, and accurate measurements for chip-to-chip, chip-to-module, device, transceiver modules, and sub systems with data rate up to 128 Gbit/s.

The system shall be used for efficient test, characterisation, and compliance to the industry emerging standards, such as: IEEE 802.3bs/3bj/3cd for 400, 200, 100, and 50 Gigabit Ethernet, OIF CEI -56G (NRZ and PAM4), 25G PON, PCI Express 32/16/8/5 GT/s, and 64G/112G fibre channel.

This test and measurement equipment will be used for R&D during the Catapult's collaborative and internal projects whilst also providing potential commercial opportunities in compliance and pre-qualification testing against a range of standards for high speed communications.

The equipment will be located in the Photonics Laboratory of the CSA Catapult as the main objective for the acquisition is to use the equipment to characterise high speed optical communications modules.

However, the use of the equipment could be relevant to all three technical sections (Photonics, Power Electronics and RF).

The equipment will be required to be delivered to the laboratory in Newport, Wales, by the end of May 2020.