Astron and IBM Team To Help Research the First Origins Of The Universe

Astron and IBM Team To Help Research the First Origins Of The Universe

ASTRON, one of the world’s leading astronomy research organizations, today announced a new collaborative agreement with IBM (NYSE: IBM) focusing on the design, engineering and manufacturing of customized, high performance analogue and mixed signal processing chips. The high performance, low power usage customized chips will be used in thousands of antennas as part of ASTRON’s project to build a new prototype radio telescope called SKADS/EMBRACE, which will be the precursor for the world’s largest radio astronomy telescope, the Square Kilometer Array (SKA) radio telescope. Financial terms are not being disclosed.

A global community of astronomers is setting out to build the world’s largest radio telescope, called the SKA radio telescope. This extremely powerful survey telescope will have millions of antennas collecting radio signals, forming the equivalent of a 1 sq Km collecting area, and spread over a huge surface area — over 3000 Km wide — about the size of the continental United States. The goal of the SKA radio telescope is to peer deep into space and look at evolving galaxies, dark matter and perhaps even the very origins of the universe – dating back more than 13 billion years.

In order to build this SKA radio telescope, new technologies, functions and huge advancements in technology will be required that need to be prototyped in pilot project form – hence the SKADS/EMBRACE project – the first step in this journey.
The Netherlands, France, Italy and Germany are involved in the design and development of SKADS/EMBRACE antenna tiles and there are additional countries which are or will be involved in the engineering and scientific testing of the SKADS/EMBRACE demonstrator.

“A large project such as SKA also requires a close collaboration with major industrial companies such as IBM and with their commitment to this project, they will contribute significantly to a successful outcome”, said Dr. Marco de Vos, ASTRON Research and Development Director. A team of engineers from both ASTRON and the IBM Technology Collaboration Solutions will work in IBM’s Burlington, Vermont, USA facility on engineering, design and manufacturing of the customized processors.

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