Minutes for SCT links meeting

                 9:00 Tuesday 29th July 1997
                       SantaCruz
                       
(1) Status report on BiLED chip 

    Roy Wastie reported on the BiLED chip (TTC BiPhase Mark encoding and LED driver 
    chip). The chip has been fabricated in the 0.7 micron ATMEL 0.7 micron CMOS process. 
    56 (10) (un) packaged chips have been produced. First measurements of a chip show 
    good functionality. See copy of the transparencies for more details.

    
                          
(2) Links requiremnts for TSP/System Tests. 
    It was agreed in the meeting that the following links should be available:
    End '97:    links for 16 SCT modules.
    Summer '98: links for 60 SCT modules.
    The links for the end '97 will use the existing package style with the existing LEDs
    and the fast rad-hard epitaxial PIN diodes.
    The links for '98 should use the proposed new style of package (see item 4 below).
    In susequent discussions in the links group it was realised that the links groups 
    had insufficient funding to pay for all these links. The suggestion was made that 
    users would have to pay for these links.    
    
(3) Project Plan for development.
    The project plan is still being worked on. Provisional agreement has been reached 
    on which groups should work on what.
    The timescale for decision on VCSELs was discussed but no agreement was reached.
    Susequent to the meeting Tony Weidberg cotacted Kevin Lear at Micro Optical about 
    production of VCSELS. Kevin Lear is keen to produce the VCSELS for us but now that 
    he is with a commercial company we will have to pay of the order of 100k$ for NRE. 
    Not all of this some can be found from inside the SCT links groups and Tony Weidberg
    will try to see if the pixel group is prepared to collaborate on the development of
    VCSELS. Tony will also pursue discussions with the Taiwan group to see if they might collaborate

     
(4) Updated Cost Estimates
    Tony Weidberg prsented the updated cost estimates for the links. The cost estimate 
    for the GEC optoelectronic package was increasing. Following discussions with Jon Hall of GEC,
    a modified package and assembly procedure was suggested. This is based on a "fibre last" assembly
    sequence where GEC would produce the package without fibres and we would insert and glue the fibres 
    in place. This simplifies handling for GEC and for us and is as simple an operation as fusion
    splicing. The current estimate for the cost of links for one SCT module is now 435 FS (see copy of 
    transparecnies for details), which is an icrease compared to the CORE estimate of 360 FS. The 
    cost estimate at the time of the SCT links review was 243 FS (although this was known to not
    include the cost of all off the back end of the system).
    Tony Weidberg suggested that the 20% proportion of spares assumed was too high.
    This should be discussed at the next meeting. 
    Firm costings for all items should be available for the next meeting.