The Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) requires the purchase of two (2) Alazar 1.8 GS/s 12-bit waveform digitizers for PCI Express bus with FPGA based FFT processing with external clock upgrade to replace existing digitizers currently malfunctioning in Government owned receivers.  

The Government intends to negotiate a sole source contract for the purchase of these items with Alazar Technologies Inc., 6600 Trans-Canada Highway, Suite 310, Pointe-Claire, QC Canada, H9R 4S2.

The Government has determined that no other source can meet this requirement as Alazar Technologies, Inc. is the only source that manufactures the required digitizers.

AFRL/RIGC requires 12 bit, 1.8 GS/s waveform digitizers for PCI Express bus with FPGA based FFT processing with external clock upgrade which are capable of streaming acquired data to PC memory at rates up to 3.5 GB/s. The architecture of Alazar's PCI Express waveform digitizers has been designed for data streaming applications. Unlike other digitizers on the market, there is no requirement for data acquisition to be stopped before the acquired data can be transferred to computer memory. The digitizer features dual-port memory buffer: ADC data is written into one port while the bus reads this data out of another port.

These specific waveform digitizers are to replace failing digitizers in current receiver systems owned and in operation by the Government. The waveform digitizers are part of a larger system manufactured by Alazar Technologies and are needed to make the receiver systems operational again. The required replacement components must be technically compatible and interoperable with the existing equipment to ensure consistency and continuity in experimentation. Due to the specialized and proprietary nature of the equipment, there are no existing third party sources that possess the proprietary knowledge or technical capability to provide the required replacment components.

Alazar Technologies is the sole manufacturer and provider of the required waveform digitizers. No other vendor offers a product which is compatible and interoperable with existing equipment.  Procuring other waveform digitizers would require purchasing new complete receiver systems at a substantial cost that the Government would not expect to be recovered through competition and result in  unacceptable delays in meeting mission requirements.

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 30 September 2018.

A Sole Source Justification will be attached to the subsequent Notice of Award.

Department of the Air Force, Air Force Materiel Command, AFRL - Rome Research Site, AFRL/Information Directorate
26 Electronic Parkway
Rome, New York 13441 United States