The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory (SAO) intends to award a Sole Source, Firm-Fixed Price (FFP) contract, under Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) part 13, Simplified Acquisition to: E2V Technologies (Marconi Applied Tech) 4 Westchester Plaza, P.O. Box 1482, Elmsford, NY 10523. SAO will procure a single charge coupled device (CCD) for the TRES spectrograph project. This CCD must have a 2k by 4.5k pixel format with square pixels 13.5 microns on a side. This device must be 4-edge buttable and backside illuminated for high quantum efficiency. Quantum efficiency (QE) measured at a device operating temperature of 173 Kelvin shall be 40% or better when illuminated with 350 nanometer (nm) light, 80% or better when illuminated with 500nm light and 25% or better when illuminated with 900nm light. QE non-uniformity will be less than 4% (1 sigma). Parallel and serial charge transfer efficiency will be 99.9995% or better. The device shall have two functional readouts. Readout noise shall be 3 electrons or less at a readout speed of 20 kilohertz.The North American Industry Classification System Code (NAICS) is 334516. The size standard is 500. Contractors interested in this requirement should submit a complete technical package that provides clear and convincing evidence that they can meet SAO’s requirement. This notice of intent is not a request for competitive proposals. However, SAO will consider all responses received by the publication due date of this notice. A determination by SAO whether or not to compete this acquisition based upon responses to this notice is solely within the discretion of SAO. Responses must be received on or before July 15, 2004. Send to: Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, ATTN: EJ Dotts M/S 22, 60 Garden St., Cambridge, MA 02138-1516, faxed to 617-496-7978. Anticipated award date is July 16, 2004.

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