To perform their various tasks (see skills), the engineering team can rely on a wide range of infrastructure, including an electronics laboratory, a mechanical workshop and a clean room with thermal vacuum chamber.

 

Electronics laboratory

The electronics laboratory is well equipped for design and manufacturing of electronic circuitry. Especially in microprocessor and FPGA based system development and in design of analog and digital breadboards, the BIRA-IASB engineering team has long-lasting experience.

Therefore, workstations with Computer Aided Design tools, such as ZUKEN CR-5000 PCB, for schematic entry and printed circuit board design are foreseen.

Design and board lay-out files can be transferred rapidly to printed circuit manufacturers for the construction of the components. But prototype boards and small series of engineering type boards can also be constructed in-house.

Measurement equipment such as analog and digital oscilloscopes and logic analyzers are available to test the designed components.

 

Mechanical workshop

Also the mechanical workshop is equipped with the necessary computer infrastructure for Computer Aided 2D and 3D Design, such as Hewlett-Packard ME-10 and SolidDesigner.

These workstations are also able to convert the output of the 2-dimensional mechanical design system ME-10 (MI-format) into commands for DECKEL numerically controlled milling machines. Besides the milling machines, the machinery also involves lathes, drilling-, cutting- and folding-machines.

 

Clean room with thermal vacuum chamber

The clean room is used for assembly of sensitive instruments and for tests that need to be performed in a clean environment. The thermal vacuum chamber is used for thermal vacuum tests. The characteristics of both facilities are summarized in the tables below.

The clean room can be hired (incl. operator) by external labs and/or companies. The rate is € 500 for a week day and € 800 for a weekend day.

Grade 1000 clean room
Temperature	18 °C
Humidity	< 50%
Cleanliness	100 000

 

 

Thermal vacuum chamber
Useful volume	288 liter, baseplate 60 x 80 cm, height 60 cm
Pumping Rotative	(8.3 l/sec) and turbomolecular (1000 l/sec) pump
Attainable pressure	2 10-6 mbar
Flushing	Nitrogen flushing possible
Thermal	Two independent Hüber control units (for baseplate and shroud)
Thermofluid	Silicon oil (-80 °C to +120 °C)
Temperature range	-55 °C to +60 °C
Regulation	Plate (+/- 0.5 °C), shroud (+/- 2 °C)
Software	Siemens driving software