This is a Notice of Proposed Contract Action under the FAR Part 12 Acquisition of Commercial Items and FAR Part 13 Simplified Acquisition Procedures. This notice is for information only; a solicitation will not be issued. THIS IS NOT A REQUEST FOR QUOTATION. No contract will be awarded on the basis of offers received in response to this notice. The associated North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) code is 334516 with a small business size standard of 500 employees.

AFRL/RITA requires a purchase of one (1) 1 hydra harp time to digital converter system. The system is comprised of the following components: One (1) hydra harp 400M mainframe and four (4) hydra harp 400 TDC modules. (Part number: 930011(QTY 1): Hydra Harp 400M - Mainframe and Part number: 930015 (QTY 4): Hydra Harp 400 - TDC Module). Complete specifications are as follows:

Input Channels and Sync

Discrimination Constant Fraction Discriminator (CFD) in all channels, software adjustable
Input voltage range: 0 mV to -1000 mV, optimum: -100 mV to -500 mV
Trigger point: falling edge
Trigger pulse width: 0.5 ns to 30 ns
Trigger pulse rise/fall time: 2 ns max.

External Reference Clock

Input: 10 MHz, min. 200 mV, max. 1 V pp, 50 Ohms, AC coupled
Output: 10 MHz, 300 mV pp, 50 Ohms, AC coupled

Time to Digital Converters

Minimum time bin width: 1 ps
Electrical time resolution: < 12 ps rms
Full scale range - histogram mode: 65 ns to 2.19 s
Full scale range - time-tagged mode: infinite
Maximum count rate per input channel: 12.5 × 106 counts/sec
Maximum sync rate: 150 MHz
Adjustable delay range for each input channel: ± 100 ns, resolution 1 ps
Dead time: < 80 ns
Differential non-linearity: < 2 % peak, < 0.2 % rms (over full measurement range)

Histogrammer

Count depth per time bin: 4.294.967.296 (32 bit)
Maximum number of time bins: 65536
Acquisition time: 1 ms to 100 hours

TTTR Engine

T2 mode resolution: 1 ps
T3 mode resolution: 1, 2, 4, ..., 33 554 432 ps
FiFo buffer depth (records): 2097152
Sustained throughput*(sum of all channels): typ. 40 × 106 events/sec

Operation

PC interface: USB 3.0
Operating system: Windows 7/8
Power consumption: small mainframe < 50 W, large mainframe < 100 W at 100 to 240 VAC
5 year warranty

The Government intends to negotiate a sole source contract with:

PicoQuant Photonics North America, Inc.
9 Trinity Drive
West Springfield, Ma, 01089

The Government has determined that no other source can meet this requirement as the Hydra Harp 400 Mainframe (P/N: 930011(QTY 1)) and Hydra Harp 400 TDC Module (P/N: 930015 (QTY 4)) is the highest timing resolution tagging system in a turnkey system that can meet all necessary elements to work with the Government's current applications. The Government's application requires extremely precise timing resolution with low system noise. Typical time to digital converters suffers from low time resolution and low synchronization speeds.

This is a notice of proposed contract action and not a request for competitive proposals; however, all responsible sources may submit a capability statement or proposal, which shall be considered by the agency. All inquiries should be sent by email to [email protected]. Responses must be submitted by the date/time listed on the notice. Any response to this notice must show clear and convincing evidence that competition would be advantageous to the Government in future procurements.

Responses received will be evaluated; however a determination by the Government not to compete the proposed procurement based upon responses to this notice is solely within the discretion of the Government. The Government anticipates an award date on or before 31 January 2016.

A Sole Source Justification will be attached to the subsequent Notice of Award in accordance with applicable regulation.