- 30 August 2006 -

Irvine Sensors $3.4m award for next phase of 3D circuits development

Costa Mesa, CA, based Irvine Sensors Corp., announced that a government customer has exercised a $3.4m option for the next phase of a program to develop 3-dimensional electronics technology intended to continue United States' dominance of high performance integrated circuits.

The Irvine Sensors program, dubbed 3D MINT, is a multi-year contract, the first phase of which was completed earlier this year with the successful demonstration of processing speeds and packaging densities that are at least an order of magnitude improved over that achievable with conventional state-of-the-art electronics. The newly awarded contract option is intended to develop hardware that is potentially transferable to both military and commercial applications.

John Carson, Irvine Sensors' CEO, said, "We have been eagerly awaiting this next phase of funding of our 3D MINT program because it represents a major milestone on our roadmap toward truly cognitive sensors that we believe can eventually accomplish human-level recognition and communication. To achieve the speed, capacity, and low power necessary for such sensors, extremely compact and high performance 3-dimensional electronics are required."

Irvine Sensors has been a leading source of innovation in the field of 3-dimensional electronics for over 25 years. During that period, the company has introduced 3-D electronics to a wide variety of military and government applications, including high density memory for space data recorders, ultra high performance neural networks for target recognition and tracking, integrated processors for ballistic missile defense, high performance laser radar imaging and miniature embedded computers. To date, commercial applications of 3-D electronics have largely been limited to components. The technical goal of the 3D MINT program is to extend the use of 3-D electronics to entire computational systems to realize the advantages that such an approach can potentially bring.

www.irvine-sensors.com