A proven concept for a shock hardened precision timer will be brought to the manufacturing stage of being released for production. Development work will include a refinement of encapsulation technique, an order of magnitude size reduction, and a resolution of reproducibility and process issues. Precision will be optimized by resonator design and material modifications. This timer consists of an oscillator designed around a derivative of a SAW resonator and features a thick film circuit, a wrap around metal housing, plus a novel resonator encapsulation technique to achieve multi-directional shock hardening to levels of 100,000 g's. Size and power consumption are kept low while providing a robust output at a 1.0 milliwatt level. The oscillator will be enhanced to allow for on-off keying, thus enabling it to be used in a telemetry mode. This phase II development work will result in manufacturing drawings for both a "present needs timer" and an "emerging needs" timer. Additionally, the encapsulation technology will be develop into a new electronic packaging format with reduced size and cost for a variety of SAW devices. This is of benefit to the Air Force as well as commercial electronic systems.
Benefits: This technology developed in this phase II effort will allow SAW based oscillators and other SAW filters to be used in applications requiring low vibration sensitivity. This includes such things as high vibration environments, high acoustic noise environments, oil well data logging and beacons related to crash environments. The new package developed will allow SAW devices to be sufficiently attractive in cost and size that new applications will be possible especially in hand held wireless communication and wearable computer equipment.
