Silicon-carbide chips from Ozark Integrated Circuits.
NASA has awarded a $124,982 grant to Ozark Integrated Circuits Inc., a technology firm affiliated with the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville, to create a fabrication process model for the design of complicated circuits that would operate for thousands of hours in very high temperatures, the university announced on Monday.
The startup also received two grants from NASA last year for two other Phase 1 projects for which Phase 2 work has now been approved.
According to a news release, Ozark IC will build upon a silicon-carbide technology developed by NASA’s Glenn Research Center for long-term monitoring and control of systems at temperatures exceeding 500 degrees Celsius, such as those found on the surface of Venus or inside a jet engine.
Ozark IC’s process design kit will contain high-fidelity models, design rules and best practices for developing more complicated circuits, Matt Francis, the company’s president and CEO, said in the release.
He told Arkansas Business this newest project was focused on actuation and data collection, on helping NASA commercialize this technology, and Phase 1 could be completed by December. Francis also said he expects to find out next spring whether Phase 2 is approved.
The Phase 1 grant, which came through the Small Business Innovation Research Program, will also support the design of an integrated circuit — a general-purpose communication link — that will prove the kit works, he said.
Francis also said in the release that Ozark IC had created kits for other extreme environments, and “the industry-standard RS-485 communication link, which will also demonstrate the scalability of the technology, enables digital data to be transmitted in both directions. The link is a key building block in remote monitoring and control.”
“At the application level, any system that needs to get information to or from a very hot location to a very cool location can make use of the RS-485 link in this technology,” he said. “The techniques we will develop will vastly reduce the cabling required and decrease noise. This is very important in aerospace applications where every gram of mass counts.”
Ozark IC designs semiconductors at the Arkansas Research and Technology Park and the UA High Density Electronics Research Center, also located at the park, will be utilized for device packaging and measurement on this project.
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