Intel recently revealed more information about its participation in DARPA (U.S. Department of Defense Advanced Research Projects) in creating the "Satellite Internet" project. Chip maker Intel will help develop optical communication subsystems to enable links between satellites.

Intel recently revealed more information about its participation in DARPA (U.S. Department of Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) in creating the "Satellite Internet" project. Chip maker Intel will help develop optical communication subsystems to enable links between satellites. The

1space-based Adaptive Communication Node (Space-BACN) project may sound like a grant project to divide fat, but Space-BACN is actually a serious task. Space-BACN aims to create orbital nodes that can convert information between different satellite networks, with the goal of enabling various satellite clusters to communicate with each other.

DARPA recently announced that it is helping DARPA cooperate with Intel, SpaceX and other professional companies to achieve a vision of seamless communication between military government and commercial civilian satellite clusters.

DARPA selected Intel to participate in the first phase of the program, which roughly includes three technical areas. Intel is involved in Technology Area 2 (TA2), and TA2 is also involved in Arizona State University and II-VI Aerospace and Defense Corporation, which cover the design work of reconfigurable optical modems. The purpose of reconfigurable optical modems is to be able to support current and new communication standards and protocols to provide the required level of interoperability between satellite clusters. Intel, a chip maker, said that the optical modem design will include three chips based on Intel's Agilex FPGA technology. These chips use embedded multi-chip interconnect bridge (EMIB) and advanced interface bus (AIB) packaging technology to integrate optical modems into a multi- chip package (MCP), similar to how Intel intends to deliver the Meteor Lake PC chip.

Among these three chips, the main chip appears to be the digital signal processor forward error correction (DSP FEC) chip, used for low-power, high-speed signal processing. DSP FEC chips will be manufactured using Intel 3 process nodes, and Intel has previously stated that it intends to start producing Intel 3 process nodes sometime in 2023.

Other chips are called data converters/transimpedance amplifiers/drivers. These chips are produced using Intel 16 process nodes and will also enter mass production in 2023. In addition, photonic integrated circuits (PICs) are based on Tower Semiconductor technology. Tower Semiconductor is an Israeli chip company, and Intel is currently acquiring Tower Semiconductor. The company said that photonic integrated circuits will provide low-loss waveguides that can automate the coupling integration and assembly of large batches of fiber optic .

Space-BACN's technical field 1 (TA1) focuses on the development of optical apertures or "heads", which are responsible for directional acquisition and tracking. The optical aperture will be connected to the optical modem of TA2 using a single-mode fiber. The work on

TA1 will be undertaken by IT service company CACI, satellite photonics expert MBRYONICS and laser communication equipment supplier Mynaric.

Technical Field 3 (TA3) includes key command and control elements required to support cross-satellite cluster optical link communication. DARPA chose SpaceX, Telesat, SpaceLink, Viasat and Kuiper Government Solutions (a subsidiary of Amazon ) to do this work and develop the model required for the interface between Space-BACN and other partners’ WeChat groups.

Intel said it has begun to enter the first phase of the program, which will design each chiplet and cooperate with other parties to define the interface between other TAs. This phase is expected to last for 14 months before a preliminary design review is underway.

Intel said that after this, the parties selected from TA1 and TA2 will start the second phase of the 18-month phase, the second phase of the development of the engineering design unit for optical terminal components. Companies participating in TA3 will "continue to develop the program so that it can operate in more challenging and dynamic situations."

According to Intel, Space-BACN is positioned to realize communication between satellite clusters, so that data can be sent anywhere on the earth."This program helps us realize this vision, enabling global connectivity from space to anywhere on Earth and enabling broadband services and the Internet of Things, which not only connects everyone but everything," said Sergey Shumarayev, senior chief engineer at Intel and lead researcher at programmable solutions.