Conductus will work to develop tunable filters using thin-film tunable-dielectric materials and high-performance, high-temperature superconductor (HTS) filter technology. Conductus currently uses HTS thin-film technology to produce high-performance filters for its ClearSite(TM) receiver subsystems for the commercial wireless market. Technology developed under the new program could lead to lower costs in manufacturing existing products, as well as to advanced new products for the wireless industry. Among the possibilities for new products are filters that can be electrically and rapidly tuned to different frequency bands and whose characteristics can be altered to meet specific application requirements. Such technology is of interest to both commercial and military customers for terrestrial, as well as satellite applications.

In industry field trials with multiple wireless operating companies, Conductus' current ClearSite wireless product has consistently demonstrated base station performance enhancements by providing superior coverage, reduced interference and enhanced voice quality, which can lead to additional billable minutes and increasing operating company revenues. By adding to its thin-film technology capabilities under this new program, Conductus will be able to continue to expand its product offerings for other applications in the rapidly-growing communications market.

Under this project, the initial effort will be to develop tunable dielectrics and fabrication processes to achieve high-quality materials with intrinsic figures-of-merit (such as tunability and loss characteristics) offering improvements at least ten times the performance currently achieved in state-of-the-art research labs. The reactive evaporation technology Conductus uses in its filter manufacturing process will be utilized for large-area deposition of tunable dielectric materials. Together with Loral, Conductus will then utilize these high-performance tunable dielectric thin films for low-loss tunable microwave devices for wireless and satellite communications. This project is part of a DARPA-sponsored initiative known as FAME (Frequency Agile Materials for Electronics) whose overall goal is to develop hybrid structures for frequency-agile filters, antennas, oscillators, and phase shifters utilizing field dependent properties of ferroelectrics, ferrites and other novel materials.

About Conductus Conductus, Inc., founded in 1987 and based in Sunnyvale, California, develops, manufactures and markets electronic components and systems based on superconductors for applications in the worldwide telecommunications market. For many applications, the unique properties of superconductors offer significant performance advantages over products based on conventional copper electronic components. These advantages can provide improved price/performance at the system level because of enhanced sensitivity and efficiency, as well as reduced size and weight.