Escape Communications Intros All-Digital Multi-Rate Multi-Mode Demodulator

Escape Communications, a provider of designs to commercial telecommunications equipment OEMs and major space and defense contractors, has announced its release of all-digital Multi-rate Multi-mode Demodulator (MMD) useful in extremely high-capacity wireless links such as satellite downlinks and crosslinks, avionics ISR applications, and terrestrial backhaul applications, according to the company.

 

Escape Communications built the technology in conjunction with Northrop Grumman Corporation's Space Technology sector in Redondo Beach, Calif., as part of its efforts to work with smaller companies to develop solutions for the space and defense industries.

The company's new multi-gigabit MMD provides substantial performance, size, weight, power and cost advantages for ground, air, and space terminals by eliminating analog circuitry, thus reducing parts count and lowering power consumption, according to Michael Stewart, president and chief executive officer at Escape Communications.

 

Stewart said the new MMD approach provides near theoretical performance and unprecedented flexibility. MMD covers an extremely wide range of bandwidths and operating modes compared with application-specific architectures.

 

He also noted that MMD improves reliability and lowers operating and maintenance costs compared to traditional analog cost as-loop approaches which require periodic tuning and component replacement.

 

The MMD platform is compatible with 1 MHz up to 1 GHz bandwidths and modulation schemes from BPSK to 32-APSK with corresponding data rates from 1 Mbps to 4 Gbps and is specifically designed to fit within a single radiation-hardened ASIC.

 

It sports additional features such as digital receiver front-end, an extensive adaptive equalizer, and simultaneous hard-decision and soft-decision outputs and is packaged in a highly integrated, low-cost 2RU rack-mount design and offers support for Web-based remote management and is offered as the EGM-2 at http://www.escapecom.com/products.php.

 

Peter Hadinger, vice president of business development for Northrop Grumman's Space Technology sector, said, “Small businesses are important contributors to our future as a global company. We will continue to seek the full involvement of innovative companies like Escape Communications whose vision and technologies are aligned with our strategic plans.”

 

Founded in 1998, Escape Communications has developed a library of communications and signal processing IP cores and solutions, coupled with an extensive portfolio of mixed-signal and embedded microprocessor implementations.